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University Of Benin: The Travail Of The 36- A Thorn Before A VC's Eyes by Blackie46(m): 1:16pm On Dec 24, 2016 |
UNIVERSITY OF BENIN: THE TRAVAIL OF THE 36 — A THORN BEFORE A VICE- CHANCELLOR’S EYES . Over five months — it is now time to call a spade a spade. A farmer who seeks the nourishment of its farm produces cannot continue the unavailing appeasement of mere mortal threateners, when the goddess of rain projects bounties of infinite sacs. . The crisis submerging the department of Foreign Languages, University of Benin, has gotten to a pandemic junction, and it should be treated as such. The results of 36 students are currently being withheld, in a partial fulfillment of the Dr. Austin Moye's verbal-recorded threat of academic victimization. What was the crime of these 36 students? Simply put: they had the effrontery to stand up against the authority of the department, by signing a petition against the department on the 1st of August, 2016. What led to the petition? And what were its demands? . At about 4:30 pm, the students of the Department of Foreign Languages began to converge at the University Staff School (USS) — the venue of the scheduled Dinner/ Award Night of the Foreign Languages Students’ Association (FOLSA). According to the program of events, the students' dinner was billed to commence by 4pm and was to end by 8pm. But inevitably, one of the logistical inadequacies that sometimes threaten event planning manifested, and the event — in the wisdom of the FOLSA Executive Council — was to be forslowed for an hour. However, this slight change in event turned out a value for the students to make exchange of pleasantries and to shower torrents of compliments on their remarkable outfits, while they yet happily await the commencement of their Dinner. . But then, something alarming — which will send a sudden wave of shock into the hearts of not only the over eighty FOLSANS (Foreign Languages students) but also invitees present — happened! Mrs. Gloria Shuaibu — a mere Staff Adviser of the Students' Association — had pronounced an immediate cancellation on the students' Dinner. The decree was of Dr. Austin Moye — the Head of Department — and the late commencement of the dinner was the guiding thought of his action, Mrs. Gloria Shuaibu claimed. Notwithstanding, let me state here that: what is most cultured is to begin an event right as at when due, but when circumstance forbids — and circumstance stubbornly warrant durational extension — how should supposed scholars manage such situation? Is it through a resolve to cancellation? . However, the students knew the decree was a joke. What right have lecturers to cancel a dinner that was completely funded by students’ hard earned money? Besides, what will become of the fate of the varieties of foods prepared? What about all of the energies enacted by poor students through the rehearsing of dance, drama, literal recitals et cetera to be staged for the event? What about the enacted energies of members of the EXCO into the dinner, right from its very beginning? . The Decree was a joke comparable to a man who was invited to a wedding ceremony, but ran pass the congregation, straight to the altar, seized the ring-box: “I am protesting against the late commencement of this rite!” He shouted, as he clinched firmly to the ring- box. But rather than breaking down laws and order, what happened to this guest's honourable option of simply leaving? . But, gradually, a lump of earth became a mountain. The seemingly joke began to take a malicious form, as Mrs. Gloria Shuaibu alerted the security department of the University of Benin, and those ones — the very professional UNIBEN Police Force — right from their headquarters, they cried down sirens to the University Staff School; the road leading from Saint Albert to Faculty stood still. It was as if a notorious squad of criminals were gathered at the University Staff School, heavily armed with tankers of petrol and trucks of matchboxes — very determined to set the entire University ablaze. . Perhaps, according to the orientation giving to the UNIBEN security, a stranded gathering of students — who had already been humiliated, badly slighted, denied and stripped off their fundamental human right to dignity, and to peaceful association, by lecturers who ought to have known better — is the definition of criminality, because upon invading the venue, the UNIBEN security men displayed absolute bestiality. Their consciences were murdered. Psychological trauma and chaos were erupted, as they forced and manhandled innocent students out of the venue of the dinner — a venue secured with the students’ sum of fifteen thousand naira. . The missing of a phone belonging to a student identified as Ibukunoluwa Sonaike is still fresh in the memory of all. In another case, those whose phones escaped missing could not save their dinner dresses — they either got ruptured or worn out beyound repair. Ironically, these were men whose responsibility it is to protect students against aggression. . To make matters worse, while the students pondered on the solution to the impasse and the possible available options left, another action — nurtured by insensibility, one typical of the instinct of a condemned street scoundrel — was let loosed. Mrs. Gloria Shuaibu again! The overzealous gentlewoman seized majority of the student's items lined up for the dinner, ranging from two hundred and fifty copies of students' Magazines (chantecler), bottles of assorted wines, caned drinks, to coolers of varieties of food et cetera, into her vehicle, and zoomed off, unconscionably. These were items bought by the levying of #2,500 each from the students. . I suggest the immediate invitation of the renowned Professor Allen J. Frances to tell the fettle of her cerebral neurocytes. . However, since rebellion against unfavorable condition has been a major phenomenon to man, right even from its early age, a fact which explains — for instance, in our African society — why a baby would not hesitate to cry after being overpowered and fed pap, which it heavily detests, little wonder the counteraction of the students against the uncouth conduct of the lecturers. A petition was filled. Against the department. And while its caption read: THE CANCELLATION OF DINNER/AWARD NIGHT (SOIREE) OF THE FOREIGN LANGUAGES STUDENTS’ ASSOCIATION (FOLSA) — an explanation to why their dinner was canceled; an explanation for the justification of their subjection to ruthless treat; a reasonable compensation for their loss; an immediate repatriation of their properties illegally carted away by the overzealous dame, amongst others, were the demands of the petition. But since the 1st of August — the date of the petition's issuance — justice has faced and has continue to face abrupt denial! . However, forty days after a total stalemate to the petition — on the 9th of September, 2016 — a circular was issued to the students. It was a notice of panel constituted by Prof. Leo Otoide, the Dean of the Faculty of Arts. PANEL TO INVESTIGATE THE CANCELLATION OF DINNER/AWARD NIGHT (SOIREE) OF THE FOREIGN LANGUAGES STUDENTS' ASSOCIATION (FOLSA), the circular read. But most regrettably, just as the petition was deliberately delayed, for the injection of frustration into the aggrieved students, so was the fate of the Faculty panel, which suffered forty more days of dormancy before the students could be invited for a hearing, on the 19th of October 2016. . The Professor A.O. Asagba-chaired panel will end its investigation by telling the students to await the panel's report through the Faculty Dean, as soon as possible. But the students will become Abikus, coming and going through the Faculty Officer's door, inquiring of the outcome of the panel, without any headway. Days and weeks and months will pass, and the students' helplessness will somersault upon hopelessness, putting their eyes in the sky, looking for where their saviour lies. . The academic results will be pasted on the notice board, but the column of the 36 will read: RESULT WITHHELD. UNDERGOING INVESTIGATION! And the implication? The graduating victims would be denied an access to clearance, holding onto their peaceful exit from the university system, while the second year victims, who ought to leave in January for their year abroad program, either at Togo or Badagry, might be rendered incapacitated. . Many students will become frustrated in the civilized medium of justice attainment. If to get justice in a citadel of learning is like a camel and a donkey dragging to pass through a needle's eye, what does the circular society holds for them? “Why should justice linger for five months?” They will query, and they will hiss. Their minds will flashback to the 29th of July, and they will remember the brutality of the Security and they will say: “If we had assaulted them back, the following week, a kangaroo panel would have been constituted against us, and by now, we would definitely have been suspended for what they would have called a breach of our affidavits of good conduct! But now the assault is against us, who will give us justice?” . Wilted by the uncertainty of justice, before the very power which had placed them below humans, and kept them in perpetual servitude, the students will supplicate. But, from Dr. Austin Moye — a regrettably tall figure of one of the few still standing, reputable, revolutionary and ideological based union (ASUU), what will they get in return for their pleas: “… Go and tell the world that your HOD talked to you rudely. We have started the war. You people have not seen academic victimization!” (There is a voice record, should the necessity for the validation of this claim arises). . In the meantime however, let us turn from the story behind this petition to its significance to nation building — and this is where my headache lies. Let me warn here, with all modesty, that the ongoing victimization of the 36 — in a sense of largeness — poses a serious concern about our survival as Nigerians, and, of course, about our collective sense of civility amongst the comity of nations because it is a matter that threatens the democratic leaning of the nation, as established by section 14, subsection 1, of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended) — it is a blatant violation of a people's fundamental human right to peaceful association, and to dignity — it is an harbinger of anarchy. Above all — and of most worrisome — it is a brutal prank triggered by a battered sense of unpatriotism, one closely fixed to the crushing down of the very admirable courage of the 36, thereby turning them to slaves, deprived of volition on matters that concern their existence. . Let us pause for a while and let us ask ourselves some truthful questions: if lecturers, noble men and women, who ought to be the custodians and the impacters of ethics and of civility — the most essential of national development and of international reputability — for the Master-Slave system of the university system, shamefully reduced themselves to oppressors of students, to authors of confusion, and to architects of thuggery, what therefore becomes the fate of the country? And since every student is an ambassador to the world, what becomes the fate of humanity? . As a student of Education, I am placed on a standard: TEACHERS ARE MODELED TO BE MODELS. But what models — from lecturers who demonstrate the most despicable of brute force — can be unleashed to the society? In Shuaibu and in Moye — as in Irma Grese and in Hitler — we are offered no hope of a better society — we are left with nothing but a guaranteed generation of zombies — otherwise, what society develops when its youths are conditioned to keep quite in the face of injustice, and to cower when their rights are being trampled upon? . Standing up against injustice is the most sacred of all heroic deeds. The action of the 36 is heroic, and as such — for the very love of our nation — they should be treated with the very smack befitting heroes, and not villains. The 36 brings us a reminiscence of the corrosive days of radical students’ unionism — days when students doggedly defend just causes, by standing up against every form of tyranny and every form of anti- masses’ policy, such as the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP), the Anglo- Nigerian Defence Pact — that very deceptive treaty which would have given the British government the legal rights to establish a military base in Nigeria. The 36 — should we cut them in their primes or decorate them with medals of kudos? . However, with this article, the travail of the 36 is placed before the very eyes of all. The rot in a system unbarred before the world. There are moments when silence is as disastrous as the calamitous memory of Hiroshima and of Nagasaki. That moment is now. And as a matter of urgency, the Most Revered Professor F.F.O. Orunwense must pluck off the thorn before his eyes. It is most dishonorable to be counted among infidels on the wrong side of history. . Moreover, let me remind us that lecturers are scholars, and the duty of scholars is to save the society from gridlock — not to make a compounding of it. For instance, one of the most influential economists of the 20th century and the founder of modern macroeconomics, John Maynard Keynes, developed an economic thought, during the 1930s, in an attempt to address the Great Depression; a thought now popularly known as Keynesianism. This is the dignifying tiding of the lettered. . Amidst heavy military bombardment, onslaught that did resulted to the incarceration, or physical and even emotional injuries, or in the most costly of all cases, death of gallant citizens — Nigerians resolved to leaving dictatorship in the posh of General Sanni Abacha. Thus, a gravebreak of tyranny will be combated with stern intolerance. It is however most tyrannical to decree a cancellation of a students' dinner without considering neither their emotional contribution nor financial input. Therefore, Dr. Austin Moye and his most noble comrade should be rehabilitated — reeducated — on the tenets of democratic rule and on that very basis for which they earn their living. They should write us books; present us scholarly papers, on the prospect of the language of French and its relevance to the sociopolitical cum economic landscape of the nation — that is their profession! Lecturers are researchers. They are neither nitpickers nor natters over students' dinners. But first, before their Rehabilitation, let them answer to their crimes against a group of innocent students. . That aside. To the UNIBEN security department. Let me ask if those men also sign affidavits of good conduct? If they do, then they should be docked before a tribunal of conscience, sanctioned for a breach of good conduct for their infliction of illegitimate anguish and for their thorough despisedness of law abiding students. Otherwise, the university community is left off guard to galloping into a dangerous dispensation — a dispensation where Anarchy is Order — there, petition becomes inconsequential, since hope is lost in the university Justice System — when similar brutality projects itself, students will result to self-defense, assaults will be paid with counter-assault, violence with counter- violence, and civility with civility. . When crime occurs and no legal, logical and moral response is offered, Comrade Wole Soyinka warns — impunity evolves and becomes integrated in conduct! For every crime, there must be a sanction, and for every victim, there must be an indemnification. . In the meantime however, as we await — in disquietude — the fall of the curtain of this honourable-lecturers-staged-against- students embarrassing drama, let me advice that, it is very behind time to play me the soccer of browbeat. It will only drag the university into an abyss of nitwit. Forget the externalization — chase no shadow! My facts are accurate. Sanction the violators. Restitute the violated. Repatriate their properties. Free the 36! Free humanity! . PATRICK Majekodunmi Benjamin (SANKARA) 1 Like |
Re: University Of Benin: The Travail Of The 36- A Thorn Before A VC's Eyes by Flexherbal(m): 1:36pm On Dec 24, 2016 |
"Sanction the violators. Restitute the violated. Repatriate their properties. Free the 36! Free humanity!" |
Re: University Of Benin: The Travail Of The 36- A Thorn Before A VC's Eyes by Nobody: 4:02pm On Dec 24, 2016 |
I expected final year student to be smarter than signing a petition against even the least lecturer in the department at that level. |
Re: University Of Benin: The Travail Of The 36- A Thorn Before A VC's Eyes by Blackie46(m): 8:15pm On Dec 30, 2016 |
LARRYDKING:What are you implying? |
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