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 learn
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
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