Category: Campus Life

University of Lagos (UNILAG), Vice-Chancellor Prof Rahamon Bello is one of those seeking a speedy resolution of the conflict between the Federal Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) that has resulted in a two-month nationwide strike.

He said the re-opening of the universities will boost Nigeria’s hosting of the fifth Regional Conference of the African Engineering Education Association holding in Lagos between next Monday and Friday.

Speaking in his capacity as the Chairman, National Organising Committee (NOC) for the conference at a briefing in the university, Bello said planning for the event being hosted by UNILAG and five other Nigerian universities (namely Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, University of Agriculture, Makurdi, Federal University Ndufu Alike, Ikwo, Federal University of Technology, Minna, University of Ilorin, and the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife) has been on for about a year.

With universities from various African countries involved and foreign facilitators coming in, Bello said postponing the conference will do more damage to Nigeria’s image than hosting it outside the UNILAG campus should the strike persists.

“This conference has been in planning for the past one year. The commitment of the foreign and local partners has been given. We were hoping that with the intense negotiations ASUU strike would be called off. We cannot cancel the conference at this point because it will be in bad light,” he said.

Being the third time the conference is coming to Nigeria, Bello said all efforts have been put in place to ensure engineering educators, professionals and policy makers to get cutting-edge information on engineering education.

Prof Oye Ibidapo-Obe, Vice-Chancellor of the Federal University, Ndufu Alike Ikwo, and a former vice-chancellor, UNILAG will deliver the keynote address at the conference.

Education Minister, Prof Ruqayyat Ahmed Rufa’I, who is expected to declare the conference open, and Ayo Vaughan, a director and Engineer with ExxonMobil, will also make presentations at the conference.

Bello said a special feature of this year’s conference is the organisation of 10 workshops to be mounted by volunteer facilitators from across the world.

“The conference has its integral part capacity building workshops for teachers in the areas of teaching methods, ICT, leadership, entrepreneurship skills etc. The workshops are to be mounted by foreign experts who are authorities in their respective fields,” he said.

The event will also feature the inauguration of the African Engineering Deans’ Council (AEDC) – the umbrella body for deans of engineering in Africa.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi otherwise known as Mahatma Gandhi, was the preeminent leader of Indian nationalism. He employed non-violent civil disobedience as a strategy that eventually led India to independence. This strategy inspired movements for non-violence, civil rights, and freedom across the world, including the civil rights movement in the United States led by the late Martin Luther King Jnr. In one of his writings, he outlined what he termed “Seven social sins”: politics without principles, wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, and worship without sacrifice.

I doubt if anyone will have issues with what he outlined. However, for the purpose of my piece today, I would like to direct attention to “knowledge without character” for very obvious reasons. I got an anonymous call three weeks ago from a student who obviously knew my late wife, Ngozi Agbo – the late pioneer Editor of Campuslife – very well. What he revealed shocked me and opened a can of worm. The caller wanted to seek my advice on the best way to tell his parents that he is gay!

He revealed that as a medical student, he’s about to conclude his housemanship and very soon his parents may start nursing the idea that he needs to get married and settle down. “Yes, I intend getting married someday, but not to a woman as I’ve never been moved sexually by any woman all my life”, he said on phone and wanted the best approach to take. I inquired at what point he knew he was gay; he said he couldn’t pinpoint the exact time, but he got to know when he was with women. “I discovered this when my girlfriend stood naked in front of me when I was 19 years old and I never felt any sexual urge; we had been going out for two years before then. She dressed up hurriedly and left after calling me a weak man”.

At that point, he thought it had to do with his upbringing since he came from a very disciplined home, but he later discovered that he was attracted to men and actually started having “an affair” with one of his course mates. That has been on for four years now. “We are very happy with our relationship and we intend to be together someday, but how do I break the news to my parents”? I inquired if he knew that his action could earn him a jail sentence if found. “I just want to live a normal, quiet life with my friend” was his reply.

As our discussion progressed, I got angry and had to vent my anger through words I cannot repeat here when he went through intimate details on how being with his partner makes him happy, I asked why couldn’t he simply choose a wife from the array of beautiful girls we have in Nigeria and live a normal life rather than be gay. His calm reply rattled me: “Sir, I called you because I knew your late wife and all she stood for and through your writing I know you must share the same values with her. Yes, she may be angry with me, but she will say it in a way that we would be able to reason together”. It was at this moment that I realised that this is a young man who really needs help. I apologised for my outburst and suddenly went soft on him.

His main burden is that his parents gave him the best life can offer and he will be betraying that trust and long term commitment if he revealed that he is gay. At the same time, he said he does not want to live a double life. I was caught off guard and didn’t know what advice to give to him on how to break the news to his parents because I found it difficult to comprehend. It was then that he dropped the clincher, part of which I used as my headline today: “Nobody will be able to stop the emerging gay revolution that is about to happen in Nigeria”. I asked why he made such a sweeping statement. “Sir, you can go and find out yourself” was his reply. At the point, the phone went dead and since he concealed his number, there was no way I could call back.

I reflected deeply for almost a week after the call: was it a prank call and should we be concerned about the issue in Nigeria? Prior to the call, I had been monitoring issues concerning gay rights with keen interest, especially when Barack Obama, David Cameron and other western leaders openly endorsed it. Their stance is in contrast with that of Russia. Only recently, the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, signed into law a bill banning the “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations to minors”, on June 30.

Any observer who followed the backlash that accompanied the bill globally would also know that gay rights are some of the most hotly contested issues in the world today. Pope Francis was quoted as saying: “If a person is gay and seeks the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge that person?… these persons must never be marginalised and they must be integrated into society.” I will go into much detail about the religious dimension next week.

Now back to the home front. I took the challenge my anonymous caller threw at me after waiting for him to call back. I called up a couple of our campus correspondents to help me carry out a clandestine investigation to ascertain the veracity of gay lifestyle on campuses – some of them are still in school despite the ASUU strike – About 80 per cent of the verbal reports I got revealed that being gay is nothing strange on some campuses these days; one even described it as a “lifestyle” involving both sexes, but far worse among females. While we – ASUU, SSANU, NASU, ASUP and all of us – are busy fighting the government to improve infrastructure and arrest the decay in the education sector, we somehow left the social flank wide open. While increased funding can make a whole lot of difference, can money change an individual’s sexual orientation? That’s food for thought.

I took the challenge a step further by engaging some lecturers. One of them described it as a clear and present danger that just needs time to mature. Another, a Sociologist, predicted that in the next five to 10 years Nigerians will start discussing it openly. “You have a youth population that is almost 70 per cent, most of them are exposed to the internet, they see the trend of debates elsewhere, and some are even gay while others are aspiring. So why would we not be discussing it openly in the next five years?”

And only last week I even shocked myself when I went to the Palms shopping mall in Lekki, Lagos. Armed with copies of The Nation for identity, I laid siege to the cinema where I guessed I might see people coming out in groups. The first group of young girls I encountered said: “we don’t trust journalists” to keep their mouths shut. The second group of young men later gave me audience when I said I wasn’t interested in their names or where they came from, but to just ascertain if the gay phenomenon calls for concern in Nigeria.

After buying them drinks I went straight to business. Do they know gay people on campuses or in their neighbourhoods? Of course they know some gay people with one of them asking me, “What’s the big deal?” about it as “it is everywhere”. His nonchalant remark almost threw me off balance as I tried to remain unruffled. One of his colleagues took it up from there asserting that it is youthful exuberance that leads some students to try out anything that’s in vogue and in the process they get hooked. Five of the six that sat with me that day said I should be concerned about the gay issue because “it is spreading fast”.

I eventually got audience with a group of young ladies after three trials and they opened another vista to the whole issue. One of them said she was raised in a very strict home and never really had close contact with men – she went to an all-girls’ secondary school and only recently graduated from a religious based university. While in school, she started experimenting with “sex toys”, such as vibrators, which was quite rampant in the hostels. “We experimented with sex toys because we feel it is not sinful, after all we do not go out to sleep with men”. Does she still use sex toys. She just smiled and left the answer hanging in the air. Do they know any lesbian around? They all exchanged glances and said they coud not answer my question.

Two years after Stephen Enyinnaya Nwosu, a Corps member, was killed in Gombi in Adamawa State, allegedly by soldiers who mistook him for a Boko Haram member, his parents are yet to come to terms with his death. At a memorial service for him last Sunday, the family alleged that it had been neglected by the government and the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). GERALD NWOKOCHA writes. 

It was 3:30pm on August 25, 2011. Stephen Enyinnaya Nwosu, a 2010 Batch ‘C’ Corps member serving in Gombi, Adamawa State, had just returned from a Community Development Service (CDS) meeting. He needed some money. Accompanied by his friend, he went to an Automated Teller Machine (ATM) to get the cash.

As he tried to get the cash, some soldiers in a van with the inscription, Operation Tsaro, a security task force in the state, pounced on him, accussing him of being a member of Boko Haram – the dreaded Islamist fundamentalist sect whose activities have led to the death of thousands.

He denied the claim and told the soldiers he was a Corps member. But, before he could show them his identity card, they had descended on him, beating him to a pulp. He was dragged on the floor to Shengere Junction in Gombi, where he was allegedly killed by the security operatives. Stephen’s body was riddled with bullets.

Later in the day, his body and those of two others were paraded before reporters by men of the 23 Armoured Brigade, Gibson Jalo Cantonment in Yola as criminals. According to the soldiers, the victims were members of Boko Haram that attacked a bank and killed 16 people, including six policemen and one soldier, in Gombi the previous day.

His parents protested, saying their son was brought up as a Catholic and could not have joined Boko Haram. The late Stephen was a member of the Nigerian Federation of Catholic Youth and President of the Catholic Corpers Association in Adamawa State.

A friend, who was with the late Stephen when he was attacked, said: “It was about 3:30pm; we went to withdraw money from an ATM. Unknown to us, Boko Haram members had robbed the bank earlier that day. Some soldiers laid ambush for the robbers. Suddenly, Bishop as the late Stephen was fondly called because of his strong Christian belief, was accosted by men of Operation Tsaro and shot in the leg.

“When he screamed, people started to run. I ran away too. The soldiers swooped on him and began to drag him along with them. None of us was wearing NYSC uniform as we had been warned not to put on the uniform always because of possible attack from Boko Haram. He was dragged on the floor to Shengere Junction, where he was told to lie down and got shot by the soldiers.”

His bereaved parents are still mourning. During the second memorial service held for him last Sunday at the Sacred Heart Parish in Umunkpeyi, Isiala Ngwa South Local Government, Abia State, they said they had been abandoned to their fate. They said no government or Army official had visited them to inform them of their son’s death.

They said some National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) officials, who promised to get to the root of the matter during a visit to them, were yet to come back with their findings.

The family took their case to God in finding Stepehn’s killers. “The NYSC and indeed the government officials, who came to console us, promised to ensure justice for our late son. But up till now, nobody, not even the Army, has visited us to know how we are faring. They have all turned their back on us,” the father said.

The death of Stephen has made the family to lose everything, Celestine, the deceased brother said.

He said the presence of his late brother’s friends and classmates at the memorial service had a devastating effect on the family.

“For each day that passes by, it is agony for our parents because Stephen was so much loved. Our father would bring out Stephen’s pictures and start thinking. He would sit to look at the pictures one after the other and cry as if the incident happened yesterday. That shows how precious my brother was to our parents.

“The three-man delegation of the NYSC sent to Adamawa State to investigate how Stephen was killed has yet to come back to us with its report. We have been so neglected by the government and the NYSC authorities,” Celestine said.

He added that the family’s effort to ensure justice for the late Stephen through the Amnesty International to make the Federal Government to investigate the incident is yet to materialise.

Celestine said the late Stephen empowered many students of his alma mater. “He would give them money to start small-scale agricultural business. Today, these students rain curses on the killers of their benefactor,” he said.

The remains of the late Stephen, who graduated from Animal Science at the Michael Okpara University of Agriculture in Umudike, Abia State, were buried on September 22, 2011 in Umukpenyi, Nvosi in Isiala Ngwa South Local Government Area amid tight security by a combined team of the State Security Service (SSS), army and police.

About six feet tall and brawny, the late Stephen won the macho contest during the Batch “C” 2010 orientation in Adamawa. The family appealed to the NYSC and the government to reopen the case and examine the circumstances that led to their son’s death.