I don’t regret my action — Student rusticated by UNILAG over Facebook post

[Gbolahan Gbadamosi]

My Note:

We have discussed this issue severally on the forum and here is another example of high handedness in the way Nigeria universities deal with issues affecting students.

I commend you to read it. Nothing to enjoy.

Gbolahan Gbadamosi

________________________________________________________

I don’t regret my action — Student rusticated by UNILAG over Facebook post

A 400-level student of the University of Lagos, Olorunfemi Adeyeye, talks about the Facebook post that led to his rustication with GBENGA ADENIJI

Were you part of the University of Lagos Students’ Union executives recently suspended by the school management for their roles in a protest in the university?

No, I am neither a member of the University of Lagos Students’ Union nor a member of the Students’ Representatives Council. I am only a concerned student. I also made it known to members of a panel inaugurated by the university management when I was invited that I was not a member of ULSU or SRC but only a concerned student.

What department and level are you?

I am a 400 level student of the Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Department of Building.

Your Facebook post titled, ‘The Senate of UNILAG: A conglomeration of academic ignorami was believed to have earned you rustication for four semesters; approximately two academic sessions. Did you bargain for what happened after the post?

I was prepared for it. The whole thing started after the resolution of the Senate of the University of Lagos. Some of us saw this coming. The resolution was anti-student. You do not make a resolution without the consent of the people it will affect.

The resolution of the Senate came after the peaceful protests we had on campus on April 6, 7 and 8, 2016. On April 6, it was the union executives who went to the office of the Division of Students’ Affairs to ask that the students should be addressed. But no one came to talk to them. On the second day, it was agreed by the student leaders, the faculty and hall executives that a protest be staged. The protest was about poor welfare. At the time, there was a fuel scarcity in the country and the union executives were using the union’s bus to convey students from Yaba to Akoka. This happened for weeks. The protest was peaceful. I think the problem was ego. No member of the management came to address the students for two days.

On the third day, it was a siren of police cars and an armoured personnel carrier that woke us at 6am. We were also sent text messages to vacate the halls of residence by 10am as academic activities had been suspended. The student leaders saw the directive as draconian. We all insisted that we would not leave the campus. A student mounted the armoured personnel carrier playfully and the police officer in it drove head on until it hit the school gate and its roof opened. The student was not injured and after sometime, we decided to go home. We were at home for three weeks. Later, the management asked us to resume for examination and that there would be rationing of electricity from 7am to 7pm. All students were also told to sign an indemnity form with our parents and take an oath before we could be reabsorbed into the university. The union and its constitution were also suspended. This is a union that was just reinstated after 10 years of proscription. I saw all these as failure on the part of the Senate and an attempt to curb and crush the union. All these made me to pick my pen and write about the Senate of the University of Lagos. I later posted it on my Facebook page.

In the post, you specifically mentioned some lecturers and the vice-chancellor of the institution who you accused of certain failings in the discharge of their academic and leadership duties respectively. What was your motivation?

I was not pushed by any allure of social media. I did it because I was convinced that there was administrative failure. I am of the opinion that a citadel of learning should provide solutions. It should be a place where policy-makers should run to for ideas and a place of solution for the society. But what we have in the university today is far from that.

What happened after the post?

We were allowed to sit for examination and after it ended, those targeted were called to appear before a panel one after the other. It was done that way so that it would not appear as ‘scapegoatism.’ I was sent a letter to appear before a panel on allegation of social misconduct. The panel was called ‘Special Senate disciplinary panel on the recent students’ protest.’ I explained what I meant in the article to members of the panel. It was later that I got a letter rusticating me from the university for four semesters.

What was your first reaction when you got the letter of rustication from the university?

I did not feel any way. I read it and saw that I had been rusticated.

What are you doing to appeal the management’s decision?

On ethical grounds, I would say the reversal of the rustication should be at the discretion of the university management. But on legal grounds, I pray that the reversal comes soon. We are in court already. The case will come up on October 10. Besides, I wrote a letter of appeal to the pro-chancellor and chancellor of the university. I explained all that happened. Others executives of the union also did the same.

Do you regret your action?

I cannot regret doing what is right. Some people told me that it is proper to be anonymous when posting such an article. They also urged me to deny the post and say that my account was hacked. I see that as ‘quackery of activism.’ The decay in our society has got to a level that if one is addressing issues, it is also important to face personalities. If I had been anonymous, none of the issues I addressed in the article would be taken seriously. I want them to understand that the rot in the society starts from the education sector.

Did you receive telephone calls and text messages from friends and colleagues that you should delete it after the post generated reactions?

Nobody did that. After the post, I sent a friend request to the Acting Dean of the Students’ Affairs who accepted my request.  He saw the post and shared it. I later sent him a message saying, ‘thank you for sharing the truth.’ At the panel, the members said they got it from the DSA and I think he showed it to them.

Did you envisage how long the battle for your reinstatement would last?

I did not really. But I know that it is a struggle that I am in for as long as it lasts.

Is this post about the university the first you posted on your Facebook page?

I have not directed any post to the university. I always write on general issues. There was one titled, ‘What is great about great Nigerian students?’ It was about academic docility though I mentioned the university there. I think this post generated reactions because it was directed at the university.

How are your parents reacting to the development?

Initially, I could not tell them but when I told my sister’s husband, they got to know. They said I had ‘killed’ them. But now they are calm about the whole matter.

Are they urging you to sort things out quickly?

As good parents, they are seeking ways to apologise to the university authorities. But if they do that, I will be unhappy. At this stage, the university management will use it against me. They used the apology tendered by one of the rusticated union leaders against him. When I was leaving the panel, they said I was not remorseful and that other rusticated students had written letters of apology. But none of them was pardoned.

I know that pleading guilty in court will not make the judge to set free the accused. If anything, it will only make his or her conviction easy.

I am a writer of conscience and did not post the article because I want popularity or anything. Even in the appeal I wrote, I did stylistic and semantic analyses of what I meant in the article. It is really appalling that in this clime we see it as disrespectful when a young person tries to plead with an adult to do some things in certain ways. It has got to a situation in Nigeria where university management sees itself as demigod. The philosophy now is that every protest must be met with a punishment. It is wrong.

What are you doing now pending the resolution of the matter?

I am sensitising people on the environment. It is about humanitarian work. I am also starting a project on the environment as an environmental scientist. It is not part of what I learnt in school, it came as a result of self-education. We mistake schooling for education. We go to school in order to know how to read and write. But getting education is about the norms, ethos, ethics and values that an individual is able to imbibe through schooling to develop himself first before transferring them to the society for development.

 

Adeyeye’s controversial Facebook post

The Senate of the University of Lagos; a Conglomeration of Academic Ignorami

The University of Lagos prides itself as a cosmopolitan university and over the years has maintained the status quo of excellence among her peers in Nigeria and the world at large. I promise not to make this BOMB as lengthy and circuitous as my last post on this medium. I will also make it as lucid as possible.

I mentioned in my last article WHAT IS GREAT ABOUT THE GREAT NIGERIAN STUDENTS the jejunity of the mission statement of the UNILAG, hardly had I finished the article when the whole statement of mine started receiving fulfillment. One would call me a prophet!.

I now see the reason for the backwardness of my nation, we blame those at the corridor of “power” forgetting those at the corridor of “education;” the corridor of “common sense.” I am a discussant of history and it has made me realise that from time immemorial, whenever there is problem in the society, tertiary institutions are places of solace, they are citadels of solutions. Government would go to schools to consult undergraduates, lecturers; professors as they posed to be the backbone of the society. Now, Nigeria is in shambles, the economy is crumbling, where is Dr. Nduibisi Nwokoma of the Economics department? Buhari is still waiting for your economic model computation and those econometrics rubbish theories you teach your students. Prof. G.L Oyekan!.., there is infrastructural decay! Prof. Idoro Godwin, buildings are collapsing and projects are poorly handled! This is not project planning class where you come to disturb students with your unending battery of questions e.g What is Objective?..answer – Objective is ….Question 2 – What is “is”? What a comedian!

Vice Chancellor sir, you remain a first class Chemical engineering graduate from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile- Ife. What has happened to the Great Ife in you? Our power generation is deteriorating and you are alive. The nation’s investment of knowledge on you to make you a scholar is a WASTE. Your first class honours degree is the true definition of a FIASCO.

That’s by the way, the protest that led to Senate’s resolution to dissolve the student union and the forceful blood covenant oath-taking was a peaceful one. One that started on a calm note with the intention to end in a day only if the DSA or VC came to talk to the students during the act. The egocentricity of an African man would not just allow them to come. They are PhD holders. I call them ACADEMIC IGNORAMUSES!

The irresponsibility, insensitivity and irresponsiveness to the welfare of the students of the VC and his misMANAGEMENT have shown that they are all misfits when it comes to parenthood.

They all stood up when the former mistake we had as president tried to rename Unilag to Maulag because the brand UNILAG gives them the pride they need to sleep with any girl-student and admission-seekers effortlessly. These are the goings-on in Unilag, let the world know! The likes of Ogbinaka Karo were ready to tear down the nation if the renaming was not revoked. Now, this is our own issue; welfarism, we can’t find them. Are they telling me that the name issue is greater than welfarism. Is the aesthetics of a building more important than the structural stability? If you don’t know, go ask the MD, Lekki Gardens.

My secondary school teacher once told me that during his days at the University of Ibadan, they protested when the chicken on their breakfast meal was reduced to 1 instead of the usual 2. For Christ’s sake, was it this same Nigeria? We never asked for all these things Bello and his cohorts enjoyed, all we asked for was water/light and all we could get from a sensible Senate is the threat of expulsion. Are there no “common sense” persons in the management anymore? We mourn the late Prof. Ayodele Awojobi freshly.

I promised not to make this too lengthy but I stand in this era for change as I don’t want to be too much of a victim of circumstance because I have never gained anything from this system of education. I learn everything myself, just like most of us. My lecturers are too busy to teach but are very ready to threaten you with failure. Where is Julius Faremi? .

I am ready not as Adekunle Gold but as an active citizen for any step they might want to take against me. E e ba mi ni’be.

I remain Adeyeye Olorunfemi.

#IwontSign.

#RescueULSU.

University of Lagos

April, 2016

Editor’s note: The university, through its Deputy Registrar (Information), Mr. Toyin Adebule, insisted that he would not grant an interview. He referred our correspondent to the press statement by the university.

 Copyright PUNCH.       

 

Source:

http://punchng.com/dont-regret-action-student-rusticated-unilag-facebook-post/

[Michael Afolayan]

I am gravely amazed that in the twenty-first century social and intellectual history of our nation, a student could be treated this way by university authorities in a society we consider sane! By the way, do we yet have the basic end-of-semester evaluation of instructors in Nigeria? Have these people checked what students do in other parts of the world when it comes to student-instructor relationships? Have they seen, for example, what American students do with the popular and quite appropriate "ratemyprofessors.com" activities? 

O ma se o! 

My verdict (not a sentence): All those responsible for this inappropriate discipline of this student (Adeyeye) should be fired! It's that sad!

Michael O. Afolayan

From the Land of Lincoln

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[Jimoh Oriyomi]

Worst things happens here in Nigeria; Corruption, intimidation, harassment and plagiarism.  

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[Segun Ogungbemi]

Alagba Afolayan,

Each university has its rules and regulations to which the students make an oath not to violate and if they are violated the students receive punishment as stipulated in the students disciplinary handbook. 

The question is: has the student in question violated any of the rules? The panel appointed by the Senate to  investigate a case follows the terms of reference to arrive at its findings and recommendations. 

There is also a Students' Disciplinary Committee that tries students for violating rules and regulations of the university, for instance, examination misconduct, cultism etc. 

when the panel or committee completes its reports it is sent to the VC before it comes to the Senate. 

The senate  considers the reports of  either a panel or a committee set up that investigates a case given to it before appropriate sanction is approved. 

Members of the panel or the committee cannot be held responsible for the decision approved the senate. So the lecturer cannot be fired as you concluded. 

I doubt if Nigerian  institutions can follow American system of 'unlimited freedom' given to their students. The principle of relativism should be allowed  in our institutions. 

SO 

Sent from my iPhone 

[Adewole Atere]

Gbolahan,

I really do not know what job you do, but I know you are a parent. Please read the content of the Facebook post of Olorunfemi and I am sure you would fault a lot of his thoughts.

Thank you.

Wole Atere

Sent from my iPad

[Okey Iheduru]

Admittedly, the Unilag student should have been more nuanced with the choice of words in his Facebook posts. However, whether as parents or universities as in loco parenti, we have a responsibility to teach and provide young people with opportunities and avenues to learn and exercise leadership responsibly. There is no doubt that our universities have serially failed on this score, even as far back as last century when some of us in the forum were undergraduates. With the exception of a few angels (God bless their souls), most Nigerian lecturers and senior administrators are tin gods and pocket dictators, often a mechanism to hide their personal and professional deficiencies.

More importantly, especially in response to Prof. Segun Ogungbemi, before defending the university for sanctioning students who violate "laws" and "oaths" the latter swore to, we should also ask whether these rules, laws, oaths, etc., are just in the first place. You and I know very well that some of the "policies" for which students are severely punished in these university are not just ridiculous; they insanely contravene numerous constitutional guarantees of freedoms and most regional and international human rights conventions and norms that are also taught in these same institutions.

Of course, a society that routinely tramples upon people's rights to the applause or indifference of the "intelligentsia" cannot but produce universities that see nothing wrong with perpetuating (often colonially-inherited) "policies" and "oaths" that have no place any university in 2016. These oaths and policies sometimes read like Gen. Muhammadu Buhari's Decree No. 2 of 1984. Universities all over the world have policies that guide the behaviors of staff and students; but most of them try to be exemplars  of civilized norms that students would, hopefully, imbibe as they learn to be responsible future leaders themselves.

Finally, you know it's against the law for any Nigerian woman to apply for a passport or open a bank account without the approval  or endorsement of her husband or father/male relative. Would it be just and acceptable in the 21st century to convict and punish women for breaking this anachronism of a law? What say you of apartheid? Jim Crow laws? etc. It's also a policy to collect exam fees from students but there is no longer any responsibility on the part of any Nigerian university to mail the results of these exams to students. Instead, students must go back to check their results, and this has generated a lucrative industry for lecturers and staff called "sorting." To complain about "sorting" means the students wants to be rusticated--and the Senate (Full Professors, Deans, Heads of Department, senior administrators, etc.,) would gladly oblige you for violating university "policy" and "oath"! Perhaps, we should FIRST applaud all those students who oppose unjust laws, and LATER upbraid them for their rudeness, just as we should also try to avail them of reasonable structures and avenues to learn responsible leadership. We've tried knee-jerk reactions to A Luta Continua since 1948, and it's not getting us very far.

Peace as always!

Okey

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[Michael Afolayan]

Ojogbon Ogungbemi: 

Mo dupe o. My own perspective is simply informed by my age-long knowledge of academia in Nigeria - as a student myself, and later as a lecturer there. I have been fortunate enough to have been in academia in the United States (way longer than I was in Nigeria) but also as a student and as well as a professor. When I bring these backgrounds to what I read in the interview with this student, I could not but be wowed! However, you said something on which I stand corrected: I did not find out much of what this particular University had to say on the issue, neither did I read the said University's rules and regulations that govern its students' freedom. I assume here that you did, and since knowledge is power, you've overpowered me here. I also did not read Adeyeye's postings on FB, not without trying, though. There are too many individuals by the same name that I gave up after a few efforts. I also agree with you: Common place deeds in someone's home may be a taboo elsewhere. BUT the notion of cultural relativism still has universal rules that give room to logic and humanity. 

I must admit, however, that I am comfortable with the "unlimited freedom" of students on this side of the great divide, although I am not sure exactly how you would define that notion. I have been priviledged to train so many of them and this much I can say: they are way more advanced and comfortable in engaging instructors in intellectual arguments than I was when I was a student under a dispensation where my freedom of expression was very, VERY limited. 

Yet, a one-sided elder, swift to pass judgment is said to be evil, and so I would say I should reserve my immediate judgment until I know more about the University's logical argument for the decision to suspend (rusticate???) a student for a protacted period. That way, I'm not misconstrued as evil. 

All that said, Prof. Ogungbemi, I appreciate your intervention.

Michael

(I still ask, do we have end-of-semester (or year) evaluations of Instructors in our higher education institutions yet?)

[Gbolahan Gbadamosi]

Wole,

Thanks you for your comments and the related questions. I did not intend to make any further comments beyond sharing the story but yours, as well as Segun Ogungbemi’s comment suggest I should add some further notes.

You asked what I do. I am a university teacher as well as a parent as you rightly suggested. I have been involved specifically in the job for 29 odd years in 5 countries (11 of those years were spent at the same Unilag). I think I have a decent idea of how the system works.

I fully endorse the views of Egbon Michael Afolayan on this matter. I am unable to do better than that. His conclusion that those responsible for the “inappropriate discipline” of the student should be fired is what I find hilarious because it would require starting that “firing” from the VC who endorsed the initial report that went to the Senate. So we would really be calling for a shutdown of the university.

You asked if I read the student’s Facebook post (Olorunfemi Adeyeye). Of course I did.  I shared that post and the first thing I did was to read it. Yes, he is probably being judged as harsh because he specifically named some of the lecturers. Who knows if his account of those lecturers is true (especially the one he had the most negative comment for)? Do you know anything to the contrary? But he only had some challenging questions for them to answer. It calls for some introspection on their part. Most Nigeria academics cannot handle it. The young lad said so – he noted that some of them have turned themselves demigod! It could not have been put better! Every semester I get evaluated by my students everywhere else I have been a teacher outside Unilag. I always look forward to the free comments of the students rather than the rating part of the activity. It helps me to improve. There will always be something nice too from a student which will make one happy. A critical view will often help you as a teacher year on year. Yes, occasionally one will get some immature students’ comment like “sack him he is black” – but then so what? I have to keep my eye on the ball not on the distractions. At what point in the history of our Higher Education are we going to give some respects to our students and especially to their views? We neither seek nor use it when freely offered.

Let me summarise some key points that interested and excited me about the young lad interview and FB post:

1.     It seems evident that if the university authorities (just any one representative) had addressed the students’ body, everything else could have been averted. The claim here is that for 2 days the students were ignored. Somebody should have an explanation for that!

2.     What exactly is this student being asked to show remorse and apologise for? Is it the audacity for demand electricity and water OR the fact that he resorted to Facebook?

3.     What has happened to the freedom of expression which lecturers have always advocated? A students writes an opinion on Facebook or writes a newspaper article (no difference really) which is critical of his university and then the student is wrong and rude?

4.     What are the rules and regulation that Segun Ogungbemi talks about which might have been violated by this post? “Thou shall speak no evil of thy university”?

5.     I have no clue regarding the details of whatever offences might have been committed by the other students in this Unilag case so I am not even going to comment on that part of the case. What interests me with this particular student is that he claims he has no official Student Union role but is making his claims as a “concerned student” who is now being disciplined because of that Facebook post. I have now gone back and read that FB post and think that was a brilliant and courageous student.

 

Finally, I believe this particular student should NOT have been in the eye of the storm. My comment is not to paint the Nigerian university system and my especially my colleagues at Unilag with one brush – there are far too many who are hard working with impeccable records  - but it seems they are in the minority and therefore unhappy on all fronts including when news like this one bring them into disrepute.

 

 

Gbolahan Gbadamosi (Bournemouth, UK)

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[Adewole Atere]

Gbolagade,

I insist that so many aspects of our friend's post are questionable. There is a world of difference in the way someone who is pressing for a positive change will handle such matters. A situation where a student chooses to make a roll call of teachers in the institution he hopes to pick a degree from, including the head of the institution, lashing out at them with words suitable for the gutters, must not be encouraged. Remember that university degrees are awarded upon moral uprightness and academic excellence. I certainly would not describe this student as morally sound if I have a request for character reference on him.

Note also, certain lies in his interview: 

1) that there was a three day of PEACEFUL DEMONSTRATION. As an activist in my undergraduate days in a Nigerian University in the 80s, I never witnessed such a peaceful DEMONSTRATION, particularly when such stretches into several days.

2) that one student PLAYFULLY CLIMBED THE ARMORED PERSONNEL CARRIER. This is quite ridiculous given the temperament of our law enforcement agents who believe that they reserve the rights for the use of violence and could have exercised such by shooting to kill. Yet our friend described the demonstration as peaceful.

In summary,I am not opposed to the freedom of speech mantra, but I believe that in exercising such a freedom, one can at least remind oneself that the terminal point of your own right is possibly where other people's rights begin.

Honestly, his choice of the legal option may in fact worsen situations both at the level of the individuals that have been seemingly verbally assaulted and at the corporate level. The best he can do is to allow his parents to continue to thread the part of peace while he, at least, temporarily suspend his rights by holding his peace.

I wish him luck.

Wole Atere.

Sent from my iPad

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[profoy...@yahoo.com]

On the first day of the so-called peaceful protest by the students some of the activists/protesters went into lecture halls  to distrupt ongoing lectures, interrupted examinations and tore some scripts of fellow students. On the second day of the 'peaceful' protects the two gates of the university were locked by demonstrating students who distruped movement to and from campus in Akoka of UNILAG.. I was one of the people not allowed to go out. of the second gate until after 7pm. The students had locked the gate and told us that the key had been thrown into the lagoon. People should try to interact with staff and 'silent' students on the ground before making comments in future

Sent from my HTC

[Jimoh Oriyomi]

Prof, what do you have to say about the Facebook post that led to the rustic at ion of that young man.only God knows what postgraduate students are going through in the hands of these analogue professors.

Sent from Gmail Mobile

[Jimoh Oriyomi]

Prof, what do you have to say about the Facebook post that led to the rustic at ion of that young man. only God knows what postgraduate students are going through in the hands of these analogue professors.

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Just an aside

Like the oppressed Nigerian students, this is from an entirely student point of view (I'm still one, both in and out of any formal institutional framework; the very publishers are an educational and propaganda institution in themselves – Oga Falola himself is an institution and he knows that what he says goes - to the extent that his analysis of his data he serves it on a platter – which might stimulate you to think and to even quote him, pertaining to much of the matter that usually consume our discussions) - and sometimes in this forum his semi-divine interventions (in the history of human political relations)

from the student point of view, the vulnerability of the student in the claws of draconian conditions and the need to protect his and her rights is paramount –

“submit or perish !” freedom from rape, threats and punitive harassment by czarist professers…

What is most transparently absent is a strong student union and a strong union leader or rebel-rouser anywhere…

Even more transparent is the absence of the criminal justice system

and a pipeline to the president...

[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

Rusticating this bold student was the easy way out.

He voiced what many think but cannot state publicly.

A richer option would be self examination on the part of the university authorities and the lecturers mentioned.

Is it true  the staff export sexual favours from female students?

Of what relevance is the knowledge the teachers are dispensing to the students in an environment of systemic decay?

Of what significance to the university is the engineering knowledge of the VC in the face of the dilapidation of strategic engineering  structures in the university?

I scrape my hair,not doff my hat, which would be inadequate, to this student, who is bold enough to risk committing  academic suicide in the name of crying out about injustice in his university.

There comes a point where politeness might not help the situation. I am also of the view that an authority figure would do well to reach a point in which barbs directed at you should not be a provocation to attack in response, but for measured reflection and response.

Nigeria is too much shaped by fear, fear of what will happen if one openly speaks against powerful figures without the backing of other powerful figures.

We need more fearless people.

toyin