By Debo Akinola
Students of Obafemi Awolowo
University, Ile Ife have raised serious concern over the university management’s
directive that students should vacate halls of residence to allow for smooth
hosting of the Nigeria Universities Games Association (NUGA) within the campus.
In a letter signed and released
by the university registrar, Mr. Dotun Awoyemi, on Monday, the authorities
directed that all students must vacate their halls of residence by 12.00 pm of
Friday, February 7, 2014.
According to release marked
RO.2/Vol.VI/16, the decision was reached at the Senate meeting held on January 31st,
adding that it became necessary to ensure an "unhindered preparation of
accommodation arrangements for the participants in NUGA.
The students are expected to be
back on campus on Sunday, 23rd February.
The development confirmed the
fear nursed by the students for the past months over possibility of sending
them back home for the period of hosting the national universities games
festival.
Meanwhile, students are already
protesting the decision in their series of open letters flying around the
campus as well as social and conventional media.
A students' ideological group,
Pacesetter Movement, in a press statement entitled 'The NUGA Games; Contempt
and Sacrifices,' raised the fear that keeping students out of campus while the
games last poses threat to safety of their lives and property.
The release issued by Ayowole
Sanyaolu, OAU coordinator, stated that though the group is not opposed to
hosting the games by the university, it said there is more to fear about
invasion of cultism into the campus since there was no democratically elected
students’ union government in place to ward off possible aggression.
The group accused the university
management of having "selfish plans to force students to go back to their
respective houses, shortly after they barely returned from an horrific strike
which lingered for six months", describing it as not only despotic but
highly derogatory.
It noted that "students are
going to be made to ply through the deadly Nigerian roads, with their bags on
their heads for a game that is supposed to last just for ten days, this is not
just illogical but insensitive. Why can’t the NUGA games be held at the end of
the session? Why must students be exposed to the dangers of our roads? Why must
students be forced to evacuate the accommodation for the athletes? The
management, in their usual regalia of repression have militarized the campus in
a bid to implement their unholy and highly malicious agenda to forcefully evict
students out of the hall of residence they duly paid for."
The group demanded for the
restoration of the students union which was proscribed three years ago saying
that the planned ejection of students is a violation of human rights.
The University chief security
officer, Mr. Paul Ogidi has doused the tension on campus. In a chat with our
correspondent, he said that the decision is in the best interest of the entire
university community
He said the university has never
and will never ‘militarize’ the process, saying that students should not accept
things without verifying the authenticity. He noted that ‘’to the best of my
knowledge, as of today (27th, January, 2014), I’ve not been given any order to
bring mobile policemen or to eject students from halls of residence. I don’t
have such directives though we’ve not been directed. The authorities have not
told us; maybe we might be called before the day or week ends’’.
On how they would provide
security for the two-week programme, Mr. Ogidi explained that they have been
meeting all stakeholders ‘’as we are expecting over 7, 000 athletes. And as you
know, it will attract national attention and so, it would also attract national
security apparatuses including the Mobile Policemen, Nigeria Security and Civil
Defence Corps, (NSCDC), Man ‘O War, Red Cross and students’ volunteers etc.
“We are going to have large
turn-out of participants and you know that the country is faced with
insurgencies from militants’ group. We can’t afford to allow security breach;
terrorists’ group may want to use that to strike because large people will gather
here for the sporting event,” he said.
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