“I have come to know that the human spirit can be temporarily subdued by terror and hardship, but never conquered; irrespective of the duration or form of the oppression.” – Anne Marie Du Preez Bezdrob
As events continue to unfold as to the acceptance of the 5% palliative put in place by the university management and the seeming untimely death of the struggle for fee reduction in Olabisi Onabanjo University, it is imperative that I state very clearly, without mincing words what my stand is on the aborted struggle. I have never been known for sitting on the fence or shying away from saying the truth; and I am not about to start now.
When the agitations for reduction in tuition fees started, the perceived reluctance of the SUG in fighting the cause led to series of clashes and heated exchange of words between the SUG and some pressure groups on campus. While the SUG was content to ‘adequately’ consult, students were impatient and wanted an accelerated confrontation with the state government to force them to implement our demands.
Two months, series of unanswered letters and one General Assembly later, more than 2000 students converged en masse in Abeokuta for the final showdown with the state government. Students were attacked by unscrupulous state elements unleashed to frighten the protesting students into beating a hasty retreat and returning to school with their tails in between their legs, but so determined was the mass of the students that they chose to sleep in the biting cold of Rev. Kuti Memorial school in Kuto rather than return to school without getting what they came for. The next day, despite being tear-gassed and beaten up, students remained so resolute that the Governor had to come out to address students. He pleaded for 7 days to address the issues, and so students returned home. Six days later, rather than implement the demands, the Government announced the closure of the school and 3 days after, announced a shambolic proscription of the union. At that point, the strength of so many students began to wane.
In the early days of the struggle, the mistake made by the SUG was in not asking students to stop payment of the fees; it was a mistake that would prove very critical and decisive in the government’s arguments. But then, more disturbing is the realisation that even after the SUG President announced in Abeokuta that students should stop payment, more than 2000 students still went ahead to pay. That alone seemed to help further the Government’s stand that if out of a student population of over 14, 000, more than 7000 have paid, where does it get the money to refund it?
While I feel the pain of every genuine student who has had to make sacrifices and suffer untold hardships in the course of this struggle only to see it aborted midway, it is instructive to ask that while we cry, we must not lose our head and allow those who served as impediments to the success of this struggle to join in berating the SUG, as they are as guilty as they are – maybe even more guilty. To me, 3 categories of people should have the decency to shut up and refrain from criticising the SUG for the disturbing role they played in aborting the struggle, as they lack all moral standing whatsoever:
1. Those who were called to go for protest and chose to sit at home,
2. Those who started the call for ‘resumption without reduction’,
3. Those who got scared of the threats of merger and started ‘begging’ SUG to allow them to resume so that they don’t lose the session.
There is no denying the fact that the SUG made some mistakes that culminated in the outcome we now have, but then, it must serve as a lesson to those coming behind. It must teach a lesson of a united SUG AT ALL TIMES & AT WHATEVER COST. It must teach a lesson on the importance of developing a hand-in-hand relationship between the Student Union and the Staff Union. It must teach a lesson on the importance of pressure groups on campus and the even more important lesson of carrying them along at crucial meetings and in times of delicate and tricky decision-makings to serve as ‘backup’ when the mental bullying from the state or management starts. It must teach a lesson of rebuilding the damaged confidence that the students have in their union and an ideological rebuilding of consciousness of the mass of the students to a level where they will be determined and resolute to pursue a course to the end; NO MATTER WHAT IT WILL TAKE, NO MATTER WHAT IT WILL COST AND NO MATTER HOW LONG IT WILL TAKE. It must teach a lesson on the importance of having an ideological organization outside school that can always weigh in and that can always be relied on and carried along in decision-making at all times.
It must also be reiterated that while our pain and anger is perfectly understood, we must in no way allow ourselves to degenerate into a point of illegality. Threatening to shoot, threatening to beat up, threatening to burn down the residence of the union leaders only portray us in a bad light. Let us vent our anger, it is justified. Let us mourn the abortion of our 4-week struggle; it is understandable; but let us not degenerate into an act of illegality; it does nothing but reduce us, not just as intellectuals and members of the academia, but as humans.
Finally, before you confine your union leaders into the dustbin of history or threaten their lives, throw in your friend, brother or colleague that was always begging the SUG to resume before achieving their aims, just because he/she was ‘tired of staying at home’. Throw in your friend that was so scared of merger that he told them to accept it like that, and that Amosun should be left for God to judge. Throw in your colleague who does not have the money to pay and still felt comfortable sitting at home while others went to the warfront.
The SUG’s final decision is one that let so many people down, considering the fact that time has been wasted and promises made. But it is the task of the student leaders coming behind to take cognisance of the mistakes made and take critical steps to avoid the pitfalls. We must at this point agree with the Late Black American Civil Rights leader, Rev. Martin Luther King, that, while we must accept finite disappointment, we must never lose infinite hope.
welcome to engr rey niranlistic blog 