Making case for suspended OAU students
It is more than five
months now since 13
student leaders of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, were summarily suspended for leading students' agitations for improved welfare conditions, the release of the then detained president of the students' union, Akinola Saburi, and stoppage of the incessant closure of the campus by the Prof. Michael Faborode-led management.
The continued suspension of 10 of the student activists is, to say the least, unjust. It will be recalled that during the same period, two other student leaders - Dairo Olatunde (the PRO of the union) and Hassan Taiwo (Coordinator, ERC) were arrested and detained by the men of the State Security Service and the state government at the instance of the management of the university.
The management had predicated the indefinite suspension on the grounds that the student leaders led a violent protest and were being investigated by the security agencies, and maintained that they would remain suspended until cleared by the security agencies. This is the highest form of injustice. In the first instance, it is pre-emptive for the management to stop the studentship of a citizen on grounds of perceived and unfounded allegations because it means no student is secure, since anybody can fabricate any allegation to get a student rusticated.
Secondly, what if it takes the security agencies years to probe the allegation (if there is any)? Will the management still keep the students out of the campus based on unproven allegations?. As I am writing this, no single evidence or report has been issued by any security agencies (either the police or the SSS) confirming the culpability of the students or even showing that any report is going on; yet the students are made to suffer unjustly. It is also worthy of mention that the detained students were granted bail by the court of law in Osogbo because the SSS and the state prosecutors could not provide evidence that would warrant their continued detention. If a court of law can do this; why is OAU management claiming to be above the law?.
What the university management is doing is to silence dissenting voices on campus, having realised that these student leaders enjoy enormous support among students. Already, millions of naira have been wasted on trailing the student leaders and on propaganda against the students.
It is important to state that the OAU management is showing no regard for the university’s laws since the university statutes provide that a student can only be suspended summarily by the vice chancellor on the ground of misconduct if he is caught personally by the vice chancellor or if he is found guilty by a disciplinary panel (which has been defined by a federal high court as a democratically set-up panel).
Kola Ibrahim,
Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.
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