By: Favour Bamijoko

During the currency of the infamous Second Intifada (2000-2005), equally known as “the second uprising,” which involved a vicious five-year Israel-Pakistan clash which left over a hundred people gruesomely killed in its first few weeks, Benjamin Netanyahu was invited to speak at Concordia University, Montreal, by Hillel, a Jewish student organisation. At the time, Netanyahu had served as the Prime Minister of Israel between 1996 – 1999 and was already notorious for his anti-palestine politics – he had (allegedly) sabotaged the Oslo Accord, the two-state solution and other negotiations meant to restore peace to the fissured region. Triggered by the negative political history of Netanyahu and the catastrophic second intifada which could not be delinked from Netanyahu’s malicious politics, the students of the University galvanised into a protest that escalated into a close-down of the venue. Netanyhu was subsequently denied a platform to speak within the University.

The practice of students resisting the invitation of controversial (and in fact, morally bankrupt) public figures and politicians as public guests to Universities did not start with OAU’s duo, Oladepo Joshua and Ejike Kelechi. Both students, Joshua, a 400 level Political Science student and Kelechi, a 200 level Psychology student had, on the 5th of June, protested against the Minister of the FCT, Nyesom Wike, during his speech at the Obafemi Awolowo University’s personality lecture, 2025. In the videos that circulated later on, the students who were seen clearly saying “Minister Wike, Compensations for the houses you demolished!” were met with force from some security operatives and were subsequently taken into custody and detained for more than seven hours by the Nigerian Police Force, Moore Police Station, Osun State. Eventual release was only secured after mounting pressure from concerned groups and relatives.

On the heels of this occurrence and the criticisms – and even indifference – by members of the society, particularly the youthful class and students across all campuses within the country, some degree of re-education of perspectives and perhaps, conferment of ethics of seeing is significantly necessary. Necessary for the sanctity of our tertiary and public institutions and for the ideological re-education of our youths upon whom the burden of the future lay.

Contrary to many derelict and half-baked comments that escorted the June 5 protest against Wike, it was definitely not a juvenile rapacity or thirst for radical controversy, that drives students or youth to engage in edge-of-the-cliff stunts, that drove Joshua and Kelechi to raise voices of protest during the minister’s speech. No, it is not the ephemeral adrenaline of such theatrics (to patronize the cynics) that propels such a display, not in a country like Nigeria where unorthodoxy of such level could lead them to the gallows or push them completely off the cliff. More often than not, it is the deep concern (not just as mere observers, but as sentient victims and conscious beings) that fuels such displays of displeasure.

Was it simply the impetuosity ‘youthful exuberance’ that roused the students of Great Ife to resist the representatives of the ex-vc of the school, Prof. Wale Omole after he was invited for a freshers orientation programme on the 28th of October 2024, or the indelible bloodstains of the lives of the students that were fatally killed under his watch in 1999 that has remained a part of or a stain on OAU’s collective history? It was said that the administration of Prof Omowale had created an ‘enabling atmosphere’ for cultists during his administration as the school failed to curb the growing menace.

Was it simply hot-headed impetuosity or the poignancy of being victims that inspired the female students of the University of Calabar to take to the streets of the school to decry the recurring assaults perpetrated against the female students of the school by the Dean (at the time) of the faculty of law, Cyril Ndifon who had once been alleged of raping a student of the school for which he was suspended in 2015. And without any doubt, it was not youthful-notoriety but the stings of poverty and social injustice, that stirred the trio of Aduwo Ayodele, Nice Linus and Mide Gbadegesin to bear placards, on the 13th of May, 2025, protesting against the unprecedented fee hike that engulfed the University of Ibadan. While punitive measures were instituted against them, hundreds of students from the University of Ibadan would later be forced to beg for financial help in order to pay their fees.

It clearly takes no miracle of clairvoyance to come to the understanding that students have been – and still are – victims of multiple iterations of injustice, some of which have endured perpetually with justice nowhere on the horizon. To hastily chalk up the expression of these grievances to youthful exuberance is to dishonestly deny the existence of the manifold problems that have grappled with our youths for years; it is to inadvertently crush the scaffolds of the personhood of those upon whose shoulders tomorrow’s future lean. To prevent youths and students alike from even touching the helms of the garment of justice is to consign them to an unending hemorrhage and the continuous sour taste of injustice; ultimately sustaining the existence and multiplication of the evils to which the youths are subject.

Over the years, and all over the world, Universities have always been prided as a sanctuary of learning, an ivory of knowledge, a sanctimonious cathedral of becoming. A technical site for the building of new crops of thinkers, leaders and professionals upon whose backs the development of the world will rest. It is the eye clinic where new sights are conferred on youths. But it can equally confer poor sights with cataracts if maliciously administered.

It is for this reason that people whom schools and Universities hold up before our youths as emblems of virtue must be people worthy of emulation in character. The obsession with character, is in fact, a much worn thoroughfare for the Universities, particularly in Nigeria. Especially in a country like ours where cultural voices accentuates the hype around character. Across Nigerian Universities, a phrase is usually re-echoed at matriculation ceremonies so much that it has become something of a catechism — “been found worthy both in character and learning.” Quite alright. Even Martin Luther King emphasizes that true education aspires for intelligence and character.

By virtue of that, there is no need for repetition (for the sake of our Universities) only individuals worthy of emulation (across all boxes, whether personal, civil or professional) should be invited into the University, and given platforms to address, influence and orientate the minds of students. That is, a lawyer, say for an example, who is embroiled in professional misconduct, has no moral standing nor the social currency to stand on an exalted platform within the University to receive the admiration, gazes of love and respect from students. A public officer, a governor, minister, local government chairman or even a politician who has sierally flouted the rules of law and conducts that holds the very fabric of our collective nationhood should have no fanfare avenue for addressing students, much less lecturing them on what the ideal state our collective nation should look like. How ironic, if anyone will care to lazily scrutinize it, how right is it that anyone who is notorious for disregarding civic ideals, rules and regulations should give a lecture on nation-building.

As both the minister for the FCT and when he was governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike has, on several occasions, assumed imperial status that runs afoul of our civic ideals, ideas, values, rules and regulations. With a curious interest in wantonness, he has demolished houses and buildings of people without due process, and without compensation. For instance, according to the Punch Newspaper of the 27th of March, 2025, Wike was fined by a court where Justice Sika Aprioku noted that the minister, Wike, failed to observe due process as he did not “notify them (the applicants) before demolishing their properties.” He was equally said to have violated the rights of the affected persons, without compensation or shelter. According to the Guardian, Wike on the 10th of May, 2020 demolished two hotels ( the Prudent Hotel, Alode, in Eleme and Etemeteh hotel in Onne) in his state. In a magical move in which the Governor was the law maker, the prosecutor and the judge, Wike ordered the demolition because the hotels had violated his executive order. It does not require the magnificent unravelling from a lawyer to know due and fair process that ought to have been followed in such an instance and that a person cannot be a judge in his own case – but the governor, who has a law degree, arrived at a different and tyrannical conclusion that saw him usurp the powers of other arms of government.

Interestingly, since the “Barr”, Wike, has assumed ministerial duties, his penchant for this wanton demolition has attained ministerial status. His days in office, so far, have been marked without several unfair, and undue process of demolition devoid of order. How can anyone, much more a lawyer, who has been brazenly guilty of notorious illegalities and human rights violations be deified to give a speech to developing students on “The Nigeria of our Dreams.” It will only be explainable if the ‘Nigeria of our dreams’ in the contemplation of the minister is one in which human rights amount to nothing and violation is the order of the day, or if the ‘Nigeria of our dreams’, in the contemplation of OAU is one where serial human rights violation and suppression of the rule of law is the order of the day, with the students they produce at the helms, orchestrating such injustice. Or is one where their produce will perpetually be at the centre of power tussles, godfatherism, and party confusion, incapable of the process of dispute resolution and reconciliation. Hello? Earth to the University of OAU; care to explain?

The essence of our Universities is fast slipping from our grasp into the ruinous sands of time. It is to train and educate. Not to indoctrinate. It is to raise informed citizens, not deformed citizens. Morally upright individuals, not morally bankrupt individuals. And for this, we can’t afford to bring those, of whom every time we read about in the news, it is most times, tyrannical; oftentimes distressing; disreputable at times; and flagrantly dismissive in-between.

In training our youths to be professionally remarkable, we must train them to be civically virtuous. The regard for due process, the dignity of the rights of persons, fair hearing, nation and institution building and respect for the rule of law must be duly taught, actively and passively, such as role modelling. If we must get it right, then we must act right.