By: Isaac Festus

Although thoroughly cliched, the statement ‘history repeats itself because people fail to learn from it’ is still relevant. It will rightly remain relevant until people take out their notebooks to take down instructive lessons when they engage with historical events or happenings that will sooner pass into history. To put it simply, lessons and points taken from history should inform present and future behaviours and decisions.

On Saturday, 6th of December, 2025, Teni was in UI for The Entertainers concert. The event was marked with a complimentary basketball game at the basketball court, Awo Sports ‘Complex’. She was accompanied, or escorted, by army officials who came in a non-standard tactical vehicle (NSTV) with a gun mounted at the top and armour-piercing bullets attached to it. This is not to mention the other arms or ammunition they were certain to have with them. 54 years after, it still remains to be seen the lesson learned from that unfortunate happening.

This spectacle — the presence of armed members on campus with gun-mounted vehicles and other arms — on campus, at a place where lots of students were present is one that ought to be immediately jarring. For a community that holds in its history the gruesome murder of a fellow student, it is really utterly negligent and almost irresponsible, particularly of the leadership psyche of the union over the years, that despite the fact of the unjust killing, armed men can casually strutter into the school environment with their arms on, even with heavy artillery.

To be clear, this stance is not an attempt to bait rage without basis. It is simply pointing out what the culture ought to be, post Kunle Adepeju’s death. In the first place, we can even begin from the very obvious point that the presence of heavily armed personnels as escorts, providing safety for high-profile people when they are on campus is insensitive, and a trait of intimidation. While security forces can provide escorts for high-profile people, they should not be seen openly with their weapons. At no point in time has the student community ever been notorious to make it unsafe for anyone to be present at. If it were unsafe, then it means; the government of the day has been sloppy in the area of security and that the students and staff alike ought not to inhabit or be present in such a space. But given the security of lives on campus, and the track record of calmness that exists, there seems to be no compelling reasons for artilleries on campus.

Detractors may want to disagree on the grounds that only Adepeju has been a victim to such a situation. Unfortunately, the soul of one innocent student is one too many. On the other hand, we cannot predetermine accidents.

The death of Adepeju is a watershed moment in the history of this student community. And it ought to have shaped our behaviour as a collective to the invitation or presence of guns on campus. When VIPs and other figures with escorts are invited to the students community, artilleries like a gun-mounted vehicle should be made to wait at the school gate, while other mini forms of guns should be kept in their vehicles, away from the sight of students.

The student union must find a way to engineer this culture into to the broader culture of the students community. Without this, we will be culpable, out of complacency, in sustaining the loophole that claimed the lives of one of ours.