The last time students of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology took to the streets to protest their being shut out of campus and their studies, the strike action had just hit 6 months. Oladimeji Opayomi (also known as Demex) wrote in to complain about how the Superintendent of Police that had been stationed to guard them during the protest had received a directive from Governor Ajimobi asking him to clear the students off the road within 2 minutes.
That ended with many students getting injured and some being arrested. For protesting their right to be in school. On the orders of their governor. Who should have ensured they were in school in the first place. A day or two after this incident, Governor Ajimobi was seen in Lagos hanging out at Mega plaza discussing the merits of the Sharwarma served there.
But all that aside, and also forgetting the sheer lack of respect (yes that!) of our leaders for the rights, the power, the capacity of their constituents to do and undo as far as their political careers are concerned, Governor Ajimobi’s nonsense yesterday should not have hit us as a surprise the way it did. This is the same governor who had selectively reopened schools in July, 2016; claiming that about 7 schools that were still shut will have to enter an undertaking before they were reopened. This man, Ajimobi, after what the way he’s just behaved should never have had the privilege of serving at the gateposts of the Oyo State Government House talk less of ‘serving’ its people as Governor. And this is not a question of pedigree or degrees or experience. This man has no idea what it means to be a leader. Demanding pleas from his constituents before doing his job! What pride!
And let no Fadoju come within the earshot of the public for a third time with his cut and join analyses or justification because as pissed as we were about this man’s audacity, we bore the pain of listening once again to the clip. It is not just him daring the students to protest neither is only his lack of understanding that it is his fault that these undergraduates have been home for almost eight months (his and Aregbesola’s actually). It is every single thing we heard him say. The man literally “came out of his ex-co meeting” to give a wrong address; to the wrong people.
Just bear with us as we take you through each statement he uttered:
–You are complaining your school has been shut for eight months. Am I the one who shut your school?
First, this presumes that the students shouldn’t be complaining or protesting the closure of their school. Secondly, he repeated this question about twice during his “address”. “Eight months of what …? This is not the first time schools are getting shut. So what?
So what? Mr Ajimobi! “So what?” That.Is.The.Definition.Of.Insolence.
-If that’s how you all want to talk to me, then go and do your worst. Hear me? Go and cause trouble and we’ll be here to match you.
This is an example of words that should never come out of a governor’s mouth. These students have been home for months on end. They have missed a whole academic semester and an exam too. They have begged. They have been civil and they have written articles too. Begging the authorities to fix what needs fixing in order for them to get back to whatever is left of their education.
This man with his words has attempted to make these frustrated young adults look disrespectful and like people to be pitied. They didn’t go there to beg. They were there to hear you justify their being shut out of school. And even that you could not do.
-Some of you should have little respect for constituted authority. No matter what. And if someone like me can come here to speak with you, it is not for you to sing about things getting tough for me.”
Let’s forget for a second about the bloated sense of entitlement that these words are laced with. Let’s address his misplaced priorities instead. Is it that Mr Ajimobi did not understand why the students were there? You’d expect that the governor would have started his address with effusive apologies. That’s the least he could have done. What we’d be talking about now is how he failed to address the real issues and how he didn’t supply sufficient information about what he and his Osun counterpart have done to solve this mess as soon as possible. But now, we have to contend with his unnecessary arrogance in addition to all that.
And then he went on to add: “even if I don’t pay salaries … the fact is that I am the constituted authority”. We’ll see about that, won’t we? We will keep this receipts (for you and everyone associated with you).
-Trying to get his police orderlies to arrest a student that ‘dared to respond to him’ in kind
This bit is better watched actually. This is the exact kind of behaviour that 16 years of democracy should have helped us weed out. But obviously, it has not. A governor of a State in Nigeria, knowing fully well that he was being recorded on video, ordered policemen to mishandle a student because he responded to him.
Our leaders need to understand that there are very few instances where there will be contextual understanding for them acting and speaking like our parents. Even then, when your child does what you do not approve of, you don’t order a policeman to roughly handle them. At least this man won’t.
And when he dismissed that idea, he went on to ask if some in the gathering were actual students.
-You must face reality. And the reality is that your management, the Oyo State Government and many governments lack funds and they are trying to help the students. *insert repeated threats here* This government will not tolerate nonsense from anybody.
Let’s just drop this here: it was Ajimobi’s nonsense that the students had to tolerate. Not the other way around.
Now, that is not reality. Being shut out school for months is a version of reality that students must now demand an end to. A condition of academia that should never have been. There should never be a situation where a government admits that there are no funds to keep an educational (or health or agricultural or any other) system running. Governor Ajimobi needs to learn models from schools that have been proactive and innovative enough to not depend on funds from the central government to exist.
It is his and his cabinet’s failing to a very large extent that a State that has the biggest city in Nigeria cannot find ways to generate funds internally to pay its own workers. That’s the reality Ajimobi needs to be in his undeserved mansion built of respect contending with. He needs to grapple with the reality that he has failed as a governor. That he watched as students of a tertiary institution sat at home for months and he still ahs not found a solution to that.
-What I expect from you now is for you to come and say “Oh Governor, our school has been shut oh”… You should have come with a view to engaging me …”
Essentially, this man was asking the students to beg him. What a wow! Leaders elsewhere have been thrown out for even thinking such thoughts in their heads.
This address should have been given to the deprived students of a school named Ajimobi founded by him with his own money and maintained through his own sweat for years and who have now developed the guts to challenge him. Not students of a Nigerian school. Not these students who should never have been deprived of the education that they pay for through their own and their parents’ sweat for. Not students, some of who voted for him and who as far as we are concerned clothe, feed and cater to his needs by keeping him in office. That is the power that the students and every other citizen of this country have over these ruling class,
They should freaking respect us and apologise to us dammit!
Creative mind. Enthusiast. Learner. Multipotentialite. And here, an assistant editor.
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