In the aftermath of the shocking decimation of Heritage Park on the 21st of November, which happened in the wee hours of the day, several on-campus local press organizations, mainstream press organizations, non-governmental organizations, alumni, observers and members of the global academia profusely decried the act, citing environmental concerns.
On the 23rd of November, Foundations for Investigative Journalism published a featured story addressing the issue where it not only cited environmental concerns, but also legal concerns. In her editorial, “Counting the Costs: The Loss of ‘Heritage’ and the Road to Repentance,” the UCJ terms the act a “deforestation”, that has both “environmental and cultural consequences which would cause increase in “the amount of carbon dioxide in that particular area.”
Indeed, in itself, the shocking reduction of Heritage Park — with its many, well spaced, trees, foliage, the concrete benches and ecological benefits — to the ruin it is now, is clearly distasteful to the environmental balance and concerns of the school. It is equally correct to spell the loss as a cultural one. As a distinct feature, Heritage Park has over the years acquired an identity collectively held by members of the school, both students and staff. Everyone — including those who sanctioned the process — knows how the park has always been an avenue for recreational activities, professional activities, leisure, group-based discussion — really, the list could keep on flowing like the Niger river. Thus, being part of our identity, it is rightly speaking, a place with sociocultural significance in our context.
But, while those concerns are valid, what is equally valid, or much more valid, is to treat the nearly sacreligious incident in isolation, as merely one with ecological (and cultural) consequence. It is to lose grasp of the main issue itself. The point here is that the devastation of the park, including the curiously suspicious masked process with which it was done, is an indice of a larger issue, one that cannot be delinked from the student community pressing concerns. Broadly, this issue is simply a disregard for pertinent details – welfare concerns and place of the student community – by the school.
Connecting the Dots
The issue of the disregard of the welfare of students by the school is not new. It has always existed in one form or the other, and in the last one year, perhaps nothing within the scheme of things here has been more glaring. Let’s take what happened on August 31, 2024, during the fee hike struggle for example. The student community simply started their respective days on that morning to a surprise eviction notice from the school, asking students to vacate the hostels before 2pm that Saturday. A couple of hours later, students who were neither prepared whether physically, mentally, not mentally, descended into a pell mell, calling on relatives and acquaintances for urgent t-fare so as to make it out of school before 2pm. In fact, but for intervention from some quarters, students who lagged in Kuti for example were threatened with fines.
The fact that that eviction order must have subjected students to emotional, mental and physical toil needs not to be restated before anyone can see it. And, while it was later said that the eviction was to grant students the needed break to source for their school fees. For context; three short weeks to source for thousands of naira the students have been unable to find in more than 2 months earlier. Ultimately, as the three-week grace lapsed, the world saw how students of the University of Ibadan sourced, or better still, begged for funds to keep their studentship protected on the various social media platforms.
On this issue, it is equally quite significant to bring to fore the issue as regards accommodation and the rising congestion of halls of residence. In the our last editorial, the issue of rising congestion was examined. Just recently, it became the subject of notice that in halls like Nnamdi Azikiwe Hall, and Independence Hall, kitchenettes are being converted into rooms. The population of halls of residence across the school have risen beyond the capacity predestined for these spaces. And in one way or the other, students have grumbled about this concern, alongside the slow-paced process of admission into hostels every session. This is not even to mention the issues about the conditions of the toilets and other systems.
In talking about this issue of student welfare, the UCH-ABH blackout episode is another instance that cannot go unmentioned. The student-residents of Alexander Brown Hall recently slugged through another episode in the valley of the shadow of darkness. The last episode was not the first. In the last one year, ABH students have seen not less than 40 days of blackout. On the 13th of November, 2024, the UCJ published an article titled, “Doctors in Darkness: Inside the Dark Chronicles of Alexander Brown Hall”. As the date when the article was published, the students had befriended darkness for 17 days. On the 8th of August, 2024, the students equally protested a 6-day blackout that affected the hall. And a year before, a UCJ report, “10 Days In Darkness: A Tale Of ABH Students And The Battle For Survival” revealed that ABH residents had been in darkness for 10 days. However, on about two occasions, it was only when the students resorted to online protest before a panacea was put in place. Notwithstanding, in the last episode of blackout, the students of ABH were still required to meet academic demands by the school — at least, until the boycott started.
These instances are just few in the presence of several other instances. Therefore, when one carefully examines these recurring events, including the Heritage Park tragedy which, according to their own complaints, caused quite a number of students in Queens Hall to lose sleep due to the jarring noise from the several chainsaws deployed to effect the destruction of the park, one would see the deeper meaning and the spellings of these trends.
Let us feign for the benefit of this paragraph that the school had no other choice than to bring down the paradise that is Heritage Park to give way to new developments, does it rule out the need for communication to the student community with whom the school environment is shared; for whose academic, social, mental and physical benefit the school, with all its environmental glory exists; and by whom, in part, the school is run? Certainly not. The necessity cannot excuse due process, and due process inherently signifies the need for communication to the University community. Quite significantly, the sudden and secret decimation, with the noise of its deafening process, was to categorically deny the “existence” of the student community, and their place as “stakeholders” in the scheme of things of the school.
Tales of a Sleeping Union Leaders
In the aftermath of Heritage’s fall, the Students’ Union leaders have barely been out to make known through an unambiguous statement its stance on the destruction. In a report published by the Foundation for Investigative Journalism, Bolaji Aweda explained that “the reason for the tree felling was to make way for infrastructural development”. The President went further to state that “to compensate for the felled trees, the school has planted thousands of trees in other places, which we are aware of. They have done this through the faculty of renewable natural resources. To compensate for the felled trees, the school has planted thousands of trees in other places, which we are aware of. They have done this through the faculty of renewable natural resources. There would also be another park like a replacement that would be situated elsewhere in the school.”
To begin with, the lack of communication about the intended decision of the school to carry out a development of that magnitude, or better still, a reversal of the park is disappointing. As a matter of obligation, if any decision, or intention from any quarters will affect, directly or indirectly, the students populace, the union leaders, so long as they are aware, should ensure such is duly communicated. The failure of the current administration to bring the student community into the knowledge of the plan is nothing but a betrayal to the trust of the students.
The thing with the excuse, or explanation given by the President is its insufficiency. The proposed replacement, or the new trees planted across the school cannot substitute the felled trees of the park in the long meantime. In the absence of Heritage Park, and pending the reconstruction of the new park which Aweda Bolajo spoke about, where else can members of the student community seat, leisure, gather around that will provide similar benefits derived from Heritage Park?
Talking about a replacement, and the trees being planted to supplant trees felled at Heritage Park, the question to ask is to what extent will the replacement be adequate? An issue of numbers. How many trees were felled at Heritage, and as of now, how many trees have been planted, and how many trees will be planted? Essentially, whatever the excuse, or explanation given by ‘Team Amelioration’ President is anything but convincing. The Students’ Union President can never be a substitute for the Directorate of Public Communication, which by the silence ever since the incidence has refused to fulfill its mandate.
Does the Student Community have a Role?
Talking about the role of the student community in all of this is quite important, not much for what they can do. Sadly, ours is a context that gives little room for student expression when it concerns institutional matters. Students have learned this by way of culture and have imbibed the habit of speaking in hushed tones about such issues. However, It is necessary for the students to understand this matter in its fullest context, at least, for the sake of awareness. And then the burden of awareness will activate the next line of action.
As pointed above, the demise of Heritage Park, beyond a mere assault on the ecological system of the school, is an affront on the collective consciousness of the student community who form the university community for the fact that it disregards their place as stakeholders in the joint-management of the environment in which they live and learn. Additionally, for the fact that since it equally neglects the welfare of students whose psychological, emotional, physical and economic benefits the park has served; and for the unapologetic disruption of students’ sleep which the cutting of the tree caused.
Furthermore, in addition to the many instances of poverty of leadership the student community has witnessed from Aweda Bolaji-led administration, the student community must count this event, coupled with the posture of the Union’s leadership, as a disappointment from the Aweda-led government who received the mandate to serve the collective benefit of the students.
On the other hand, students must also categorically note the disregard for scale of presence which underscore managerial conduct. For years now, the student community has been in need of new hostels. All the halls of residence are as of date congested and are all virtually bedbug infested as a result. But sadly unacknowledged. The logical excuse being the paucity of fund to build new hostels and eradicate bedbugs. It nevertheless becomes reasonable to ask thoughtful financial questions. Since it has been said that the reason why the park had to be pulled down is for an infrastructural project — what some have said would be ‘a new senate building’. The student community must ask and get answers to its bothering concerns. Where is the financial cost of the proposed Senate Building coming from? What exactly is the multimillion disbursed NELFUND revenue meant for? How has it been utilized? Who should it be used for? When will it be the turn of the student community to enjoy new infrastructural projects (in terms of new halls of residence, equipped faculty libraries, functioning street light, adequate electricity supply, conducive environment where teaching aids like projectors are available and used to students benefit?
