Some days ago, I was in the ancient town of Ile-Ife to see for myself the state of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) Campus after a compulsory holiday. What informed this trip of mine is not far-fetched. It happened that the OAU undergraduate students had a peaceful picket in the early days of December 2015 that handed them too a proportionate compulsory holiday.
As a way of playing the ostrich, the school management had advised that nothing could be done to their dilapidated halls of residence, lack of potable water and myriad other problems except they (the students) vacate their place of abode so that ‘construction work could begin earnestly’. Despite the student expectations owing to an earlier “promise” which was reneged.
2016, upon resumption, nothing has changed as regards the student’s plight, at least for now on the OAU campus. The truth is this- a strike is imminent. Yes, after this present academic calendar, if nothing is done to their public outcry.
Besides, the problem of the OAU students is akin to students of other public universities in Nigeria. Just that, the OAU as an institution is somehow peculiar because of the ideology of its founding fathers. The OAU is one way or another peculiar because their union lies in the mind of the rank and file not in the student union building like some other universities.
The persistent struggle on the OAU campus is a generational thing. Even if all the radical elements are suspended just like the president and other important union executives has been plagued now with 2-3 years suspension span respectively, others (ideological organizations on campus) will rise to the challenge. That is the fact.
Until, the university authority sees student unionism on the OAU campus as an important segment of the organogram, crisis will linger, classes will be stampeded upon to pursue agitations, progress will be affected and there will never be a unity of direction.
In any picket, the picketers always have grievances. In the case of the OAU students (picketers), their grievances included: over-crowding of the dilapidated halls of residence, decaying infrastructures, libraries, workshops and laboratories all shorn of necessary aids, lack of potable water, top management recklessness, horrible sewage system and so on. All these front-lining problems are capable of hampering the intents of learning and culture- a colophon and motto of one of the leading university in sub-Sahara Africa.
Not until I saw this, I never believed there was any moral justification in fighting a course which ultimately prolong a student’s days on the campus. Rubbing minds with the OAU students, Alumni’s and seeing things for myself, had put me in a better position to state their course unequivocally. This will be the crux of the successive lines of disposition.
A while ago, Olabisi Deji-Folutile queried in one of her intervention (Frank Talk: Time for OAU alumni to rescue their alma mater) in the PUNCH, “How can students of a university established 53 years ago still be fetching water from the stream in the 21st century?” Responding it is very absurd but let me add, I witnessed students (female and male) going to fetch “dirty” water from the same stream and well miles away from their halls of residence. This is a burden on the students.
On top of this bedlam, halls of residence on the OAU campus are nothing to write home about. In fact, some prison yards in Nigeria are better than some of the hostels they live in. However, the only difference the latter place of abode enjoys is “more freedom”. During the regime of a top academic on the OAU campus, this professor proposed the ‘privatization of public hostels’ just to increase the misery of that pauper boy or girl grappling through life.
Where is the place of protecting the weak and ensuring they enjoy some of the benefits of economic progress if there is any? Isn’t it funny, for an academic lore to say education is only for the rich? How does one explain the rationale behind 12 people living in one fusty and unventilated room?
The halls of residence are too crowded, beds invested with bugs because of unkempt environment, sewage system is in comatose, no water supply to these hostels and yet the school management is building a ship-like, 12-storey new senate building with 5 years as completion term. What usefulness will it serve the greater number compared to renovating those death trap and breeds for epidemic diseases? The other day, I couldn’t use the “rest” room because there was no additional water accruable to me after I had been guaranteed some quantity of water for mild washing (not thorough washing) of my body.
One thing is important in any institution, it is electricity. To be fair, the OAU campus enjoys electrical energy to a commendable extent. Kudos to the school authority for measures taken to ensure a quite stable power supply but some things needs urgent attention.
One, renovation of all halls of residence coupled with building of modern hostels. Critical to this a case in point is: reducing the crowd in the mildewed and old-fashioned hostels. There is a need to construct more hostels so that the occupants of these unventilated rooms will at least be reduced to eight occupants-per-room and one of their grievances would have been solved. A big question pricks my mind.
Where is the money?
Two, provision of potable water. The other day in India, picketers made a point- the progress of a systemic institution has just one formula: electricity and running water. In the same vein, water supply to these halls of residence on the OAU campus is necessitated, water channels that had been destroyed invariably must be repaired. Needless to say, the OAU campus has become a butt of local and international jokes but yet still, the school management is denying these day-light realities and at every slightest opportunity, they defend and sustain their course by towing the path of calumny and insincerity.
Three, improvement on the existing infrastructures on the OAU campus is very important ditto to all public universities in Nigeria. This has been the outcry of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). Due to the failings of the federal government to provide infrastructures, the missions and visions of public universities (skill acquisition centres) in Nigeria has been floundered.
There are not enough lecture theatres-infrastructure problems. The few available ones sometimes cannot even contain students offering a particular course leading to an unfavourable learning environment. Many a time, some lecturers cannot even lecture properly under such unfavourable conditions. I pity them sometimes. This is one of the many rot that pervades the university system. Even, management fraud is another germane problem in the hierarchical system.
In any emerging economy, academies (both public and private) and academics has always played a major role. Academies have always been the engine room for Research and Development (R&D), a major sine-qua-non for national development. Critical to this is education which is underfunded in Nigeria. Though the 2016 National budget is an improvement compared to other successive ones. Has it adhered to the 26% budgetary allocation to education as stipulated by UNESCO?
The pre-eminence of R&D in national development cannot be undervalued but R&D cannot strive or thrive in an environment where government hold its very same course in absolute contempt and mere bulky policy papers impregnated with well-constructed sentence structure and language rules but no practical action, discipline and sincerity on the part of the same government.
Government simply needs to revamp the educational sector and everything it represents. Period! For with decayed infrastructure and uncomplimentary study environment, all owing to inadequate funding, R&D in Nigeria will continue to be a façade.
Human needs are insatiable but if this need be a necessity (the mother of invention) then it is not a sin. This is a sane agitation, one that would define the future of this country later or sooner. The earlier we respond to the agitations of “the leaders of tomorrow” with all intents and purposes, the better for the nation, the students and even children yet unborn.
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Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija
Article written by Orukotan Ayomikun Samuel
