THE SHORTCUT AND THE LONG-SHOT TO STABLE ACADEMIC CALENDAR - OMOLE IBUKUN

‘Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it’ George Santayana
I wish to welcome all Great Ife Students back to campus for this second
semester and I wish us all success. Meanwhile, the strong concern of most of
us as we resume is the question of how stable the academic calendar will be
for this semester and how the smooth running of the university will be
maintained. This concern is very justifiable considering the need to desperately
get out of this university system that have been plagued with poor welfare, poor
infrastructure, poor learning facilities, poor academic personnel, high fees and
poor quality of education. The frustrations of this present academic system can
be too many; from looking for water to take your bath, to waiting for light so
that one can cook, to reading in a library with outdated books, to taking
theoretical practical in an empty laboratory, to taking classes in an over-
populated dilapidated lecture theatre, to sleeping in an infested congested
accommodation and to tolerating inconsiderate lecturers. Our recent attempts
to reject these poor conditions have met with a gridlock of relative defeat and a
lot of us actually want to escape this by graduating on time. In fact, the good
song of graduating on time is what we enjoy whichever direction we turn to, but
no one is telling us how we will achieve this much-wanted stability – our
consolation prize for our many frustrations.

While many have trumpeted the gospel of stable academic calendar at different
periods (especially electoral periods), no one has actually presented to us a
reasonable scientific programme towards achievingit, and that has led most of
us to the unthinkable acts of licking the dirty boots of some Vice-Chancellors
(that the Great Late Prof. Festus Iyayi called demons and monsters) who wish
to prey on our naivety to aggrandize themselves monetarily and in terms of
political influence and opportunities. At some points in our journey, this
desperation has also led us to put our union in charge of diplomatic (or better
put, gullible) puppets, who share an extreme version of this need for stability
that we all have. These ones do everything to tie our hope for stability to our
unflinching cooperation with whatever policies that comes from the university
management, either good or bad. Meanwhile, in the course of executing this, the
fragile motive for the collective interest of stability quickly switches (either
consciously or unconsciously) to their individual interest of getting personal
interests, like favors, opportunities, material wealth and influence from the
university management. As such WORKING WITH THE UNIVERSITY
MANAGEMENT becomes WORKING FOR THE UNIVERSITY MANAGEMENT.

This is the shortcut to stable academic calendar, which is always short-lived by
workers’ crises and community crises, even if students are successfully fooled
or cowed into silence.
Meanwhile, the consolation prize of stable academic calendar wouldn’t be this
overemphasized if we take the time to demystify the burden of recent defeat in
our genuine struggle so that we can better our lot with substantial victories. If
we had done this, we would not be stuck with defending this consolation prize
but we will be waging victorious intellectual struggles for the betterment of our
welfare and security. Both the 2014 anti-fee hike struggle and the 2015 better
welfare struggle were practically forced on the respective leaders of the
students’ union to take them up. In both struggles, these leaders ensured that
decision-making congresses were not called and whenever they were called,
they are not democratic. Both leaders later used an excuse of fake victimization
to evade leading their followers to victory, while ratting out the determined ones
for suspensions and rustications. Yet, both relatively enjoyed the close
friendship of the university management while distancing themselves from
students by hiring thugs and loyalists to shout down any qualitative opposition
and by raising their living standards above that of their followers out of the
hard-earned mismanagedstudents’ union dues. We must continue to reassert
that while union leadership is meant to adorn students with leadership qualities
(inwhich sycophancy, flattery and conformism cannot be found), there is need
to sustain a vibrant quality pressure group to defend the survival and
meaningful existence of students. To achieve this, we must choose our union
leaders wisely at every opportunity we get with the view of driving our union
towards independence.

A very recent example of the rot of fighting for crumbs of this consolation
instead of facing the real business of a pressure group is the protest that some
students’ unionists embarked on in solidarity with the Acting Vice-Chancellor –
Prof. Anthony Elujoba on his invitation to the office of the EFCC in Ibadan. While
no political victimization of the Vice-Chancellor have been ascertained yet, and
the invitation merely bordered on the question of due-process and the
implementation of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) policy, some students
went ahead to shame the great reputation of the intellectual clear-headedness
that Great Ife students are known to have by reducing our union to a rotten
platform like NANS who went on protest over the fact that Buhari retired some
VCs. Meanwhile, the education system continues to remain a mess because
both the structures of Students’ unions and NANS that could defend and
salvage it are busy defending some ‘Fatherly’ Vice-Chancellors. It is also
necessary to note here that a lot of people have given the credit of the non-
participation of the OAU ASUU in the recently- concluded ASUU warning strike
to the diplomacy of the Acting VC, it is majorly thefactionalization within the
ASUU leadership of the branch, alongside other minor reason like ongoing
exams that ‘saved’ OAU from that destabilization.

I once proposed it to the university management at a meeting that held on
August 16, 2016, (where they said the university had no money) that they
should give students the freedom to take up the Federal Government externally
on the funding of the Education Sector without victimizing us with school
closures, amongst others. The management replied that they cared so much for
us and they don’t want us to lose our life while taking up the government –
tactically conceding that the government (whose bidding they are doing) is
tyrannical. While I understand that such answers were motivated by the need to
keep their lucrative jobs and make themselves recommendable for higher-paying
positions at the expense of our collective welfare and security, I also used the
opportunity to rediscover the fact that, no matter how good your intentions are,
it is required of you to be dictatorial and autocratic to survive as a Vice-
Chancellor in this present system or with this present structure. I then went
ahead to propose a new structure in which all stakeholders of the university
would be consisted in all the decision-making organs of the university. The
university would therefore not be destabilized by students’ crises, workers’
crises or community crises, if all these stakeholders have significant
representation in all the decision making organs of the university, especially the
University Senate. This is the long-shot to ensuring stable academic calendar
which is a long-lasting solution and only a vibrant students’ union leadership
can assert this. It is time to take our future in our hands and save ourselves
instead of desperately believing in an incapacitated ‘Messiah’.
#ProbeOmoleNow

ALUTA CONTINUA, VICTORIA ASCERTA
(Omole Ibukun Ayodele aka. Hon. IBK is the National Secretary of the Education
Rights Campaign and a penultimate year student of the Obafemi Awolowo
University)