This is to give an informative and instructive response to a supposed release issued by the University’s Public Relations Officer (P.R.O), published by The Punch Newspapers (pg. 34) on the Tuesday, December 4, 2018 where he stated, in contrast to the statement of the Students’ Union Action Committee that “the OAU Community, particularly, the Students, are eagerly waiting for a day when either President Muhammadu Buhari or Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, or both of them, will come to OAU on a visit.”
To start with, it is imperative to state that the University’s P.R.O is an administrative member of staff (not a student) whose function is to give necessary information about the adminstration of the University. He is not in the position to speak for the student populace, not to talk more of taking decisions on behalf of the Student populace who form the largest population of the University community.
Therefore, the statement issued by the PRO is not only erroneous and misleading, it is also an act of impersonation and imposition.
Furthermore, I make bold to assert that the rejection of irresponsible, corrupt, and by the virtue of the latter, anti-student politicians in OAU campus is a long- standing position of the union through her congressional resolution of the Students’ Union since 2005/06 and also 2008/09 parliamentary Year respectively where corrupt politicians were declared persona non grata on OAU campus without any sense of political partisanship. This position remains not countered because it is still valid as corrupt politicians are the same leopards whose skins have never changed.
From and for the records, a long list of corrupt politicians have been given same rejection and warning in times past while the erring ones have always had their bitter regrets.
The likes of Olusegun Obasanjo, Nuhu Ribadu, Goodluck Jonathan, Ayodele Fayose and Aregbesola have all had themselves to bitter regrets and blame because they ignored the initial warnings against their presence on campus by the student populace.
It should be recalled, that the reasons for rejecting Osinbajo was adequately stated in release of the Students’ Union Action Committee some weeks ago. While I had expected that the Presidency and the Office of the Vice President would have done the needful regarding all demands for an immediate need to attend to the dying state of public education in Nigeria, I find it rather odd that their adminstration went ahead to introduce a ‘no work, no pay’ policy (which was reversed after the agitations of Nigerian masses). I consider it not only a rickety, but an unproductive approach to the crisis of the education sector, but unfortunately, the PRO rather made claims that the Vice President who is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and renowned professor of law whose brilliant performance in the present administration has done the academic community proud. One finds it hard to logically measure to any extent at all, the correctness of such claim here.
It is rather obvious that this present governmental administration, like every other, is not only anti-students but also anti-workers.
To cap it all, this piece should serve as a valuable information to all students, staff, the general public, and also to other anti-people politicians, who quest to be celebrated in public and in academic environment but further contribute to mass impoverishment of the people and the decay of public education through their policies in administrations. If this cannot be challenged in an academic environment, then there is no education at all.
If the government exists for the people and not that the people exist for the government, then, a word they say is enough for the wise!
Binzak Azeez writes from the faculty of Law Obafemi Awolowo University
