A Hotbed Of Dictatorship -By Kene Obiezu

At the instance of the vice chancellor and the entire management of the Nasarawa State University, Keffi, the hammer is slamming down hard and fast on the students of the school for doing nothing order than organize, make demands of the management and seek clarification. In fact, for even attempting to organize and protest, the university is making a withering example of some students.

The university management took the extraordinary step of rusticating about 37 students for forming and joining a WhatsApp group with the aim of organizing a protest against the introduction of fees for a third semester.

The university has been in the news for taking a couple of extraordinary measures to check student unionism on campus. Following an election into the school’s Student’s Union Government, the management alleged irregularities and violence before suspending the exercise.

It also took the extraordinary measure of proscribing the familiar student union government, before replacing it with a dubiously described student representative council. Curiously, the management also stipulated that ascension into the body shall be based on academic performance.

The university management may argue that it has taken these extremely shortsighted measures to forestall a breakdown of law and order on campus. But since it is clear that the students are becoming restive, it would be prudent to inquire into what cause of the restiveness in the first place. Are the students suddenly giving in to dangerous mischief, or are the insensitive decisions of the management making life unbearable for the students?

Nigeria’s democracy owes a blood debt to student unionism in Nigerian universities. In the heydays of military rule, even when the country was under the most brutal dictatorships, students spread across Nigerian universities formed a battering bulwark against dictatorship. That some men and women who have gone on to play key roles in Nigerian politics and government started as student unionists is testament to the key roles student unionism has played in the history of the country.

So, why is the management university led by Professor Saadatu Liman intent, even desperate, on destroying what is a cradle of Nigeria’s democracy? The answer lies in the increasing intolerance underpinning the subtle dictatorship sweeping through the country.

In these days when the Department of State Services (DSS) and the Police do little more than hound critics of government and key institutions, the university is only borrowing a leaf to gag students under the cover of maintaining law and order.
It should be more important to the university management that students can express their opinions clearly and peacefully on campus without victimization. It should be equally important to the university that channels of communication are left open. Experience shows that people usually resort to violence only when their genuine and peaceful complaints are not attended to.
The management of the university should immediately rescind the rustication handed down to the students. In the circumstances, rusticating the students amounts to killing a fly with a sledgehammer. The university should also discard the utterly ridiculous idea of a Student Representatives Council in favour of Student Union Government and Students should be allowed to peacefully mobilize and form their government. That is where democracy begins.

If mistakes are made by the students, it should be corrected with reasonable measures and not wild attempts to suppress the voice of the students. It is not even like the university management has been faultless and blameless in the way it has administered the university. Afterall, in 2024, it was under its watch under the watch that about four students were trampled to their death on the university grounds as a stampede ensued over palliatives from the state government.

Across Nigerian universities, there is a growing tendency to prevent students from expressing their grievances with practices and people that are harmful to them, especially when those expressions are critical of the school management. This practice must be discouraged as it bears the seeds of intolerance scything through Nigeria.

Student unionism has shown its ageless value to democracy in Nigeria from the days of Nigeria’s independence struggle. This value must be preferred to the misplaced distaste and disgust of ultra-political and dictatorial university administrators, many of whom want to drive students and staff with an iron fist.

Kene Obiezu,
keneobiezu@gmail.com