The Ekiti State University (EKSU), Ado-Ekiti, was shut indefinitely on September 28, by the authorities because of a violent protest by students over the killing of one of them by a supposed hit-and-run vehicle. However, beyond restoring property damaged during the protest, the EKSU management needs to address the myriad of issues that may have influenced the protests. Reports SULAIMAN SALAWUDEEN.
STUDENTS of the Ekiti State University (EKSU), Ado-Ekiti, are to pay N6,500 fine before they can resume to complete the second semester of the 2011/2012 academic session.
At a meeting the university management held with their representatives on Tuesday, it said a resumption date would not be announced until 70 per cent of the student population had paid the fine.
The amount, reduced from N10,500 after an appeal by the students, is to indemnify the university against the losses it suffered when the students went on the rampage September 28 to protest the death of Abiola Teslim Yusuf, a final year student of Accountancy, who was hit by a vehicle in Osekita Hostel, an off-campus students residence, under controversial circumstances.
By the time the protest which started a few minutes after 4pm and lasted about 40 minutes was brought under control, almost all buildings on campus, including the health centre, security unit, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Centre, lecture theatres, engineering and the part-time blocks and the Access and Zenith Bank structures, had been vandalised; while the school’s Agricultural Farm which had 3,500 birds, 120 crates of eggs, 10 goats, 75 sheep, 25 rabbits, 30 pigs was looted.
Also, at least five vehicles were burnt. It was only facilities of the medical school that were spared.
However, some sources believe the death of the student was not the only reason for the violence. They claimed that it provided an avenue for students to rebel against alleged nonchalant attitude of the university authorities to several complaints about insecurity, missing examination scripts, delay in the release of results, sexual harassment, cultism and other issues.
Some students and workers who spoke with The Nation alleged that the management responded poorly to issues pertaining to their health and welfare, including how they are attended to at the health centre.
They said it would be irrational for students to have visited such scale of destruction on their own school because a student, said to be a cultist, died in an accident.
They noted that many students had died in one accident or the other and no protest was staged or property destroyed
Recounting what led to the protest, they said Yusuf was taken to the health centre after being hit and was not promptly attended to.
“It was their customary failure at the school’s health centre that forced us to take him to the State Teaching Hospital (EKSUTH) where he was again referred to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH). He died in Ibadan on the way to LUTH,” they said.
But the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Patrick Aina, denied the allegations.
According to him, despite that he learnt Yusuf was a high ranking member of the Eiye Confraternity, a notorious cult group, he personally supervised his being taken to the hospital for medical attention immediately after the incident.
Aina said: “When we realised that his condition was not stabilising at the health centre as we expected, he was moved to the Intensive Care Unit of EKSUTH. But on Friday, we were referred to LUTH when the doctors explained he had to be operated upon by experts as he sustained a serious head injury.
“The student died in Ibadan on his way to LUTH on Friday, despite our efforts to ensure that he survived even when we had not asked about who was responsible for the student’s death.”
Aina was hurt by the level of destruction. “I had gone to Osekita Hostel on Friday shortly before the incident and spoken with the students, but it was shocking and amazing that they still decided to vent indefensible anger the way they did, after all our efforts. To us, this is an unjustifiable action and will be investigated,” he said.
Perhaps after investigating the Vice-Chancellor would find that some of the students participated in the destruction to justify how much they would be forced to pay for damages.
“The dead student was a cultist. It was his fellow cultists who led the destruction. When other students found that they had destroyed almost all buildings in the school and knowing they would be required to pay for damages, they decided to maximise the amount they would be told to pay, so they looted the farm,” said a student, who did not want to be named.
Aina may also find that the university needs to find solutions to cultism, admission racketeering and sexual harassment, among others.
Some students who spoke with The Nation confirmed these problems and others such as enrolment of supposedly unqualified/under-qualified students, especially for part-time programmes, lack of fully functioning registry for student data storage/retrieval system, inadequate facilities, high handedness of lecturers, and unregulated off-campus hostel accommodation system where security is not guaranteed.
With a guarantee of confidentiality, the students, both males and females, reeled out tales of what one of them saw as “aberrations that live with us here in the school.”
Despite assurances by concerned authorities, the students explain “these problems just do not go”.
Fatade (not real name), a student of the Faculty of Education said: “The problems are so much that nobody can solve them. We talk of constant loss of examination scripts and attendant failure of those who you expect should pass their examination; talk of substandard, yes, substandard lecturers; talk of sexual harassment through various means by male lecturers of female students; talk even of extortion of the students in various ways. The problems are more than I have said.
“I should also add the issue of unclear admission process. How are the students being admitted? Is it through the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination organised by JAMB or through a separate arrangement independent of JAMB? When you observe how a student runs his life, you will appreciate the pertinence of my questions,” Fatade said.
A petition by some part-time students about three weeks before the crisis mirrors some of Fatade’s claims. The students petitioned the vice chancellor over the alleged “refusal of the school’s senate to process” the clearance of their final results for necessary collation and processing to enable them meet the deadline of the National Youth Service Commission (NYSC).
They appealed through the petition dated September 12, for immediate and result yielding intervention of the VC to quicken the clearance by the senate of the results for early release of their certificates.
Most of the students allegedly affected were graduates of the Departments of Business Administration, Accounting and Banking/Finance.
They said: “Each time we go to the department, we were always referred to Directorate of Part-Time Programmes; getting there, there is no other news than that the ‘Senate has not approved our results or will approve soon’ and this has brought confusion into our careers.
“But with the pedigree of Prof Aina in the academic world, we are confident that he will act fast to bring back the lost glory of EKSU by ensuring that results are released as at when due,” they concluded.
Debunking their claims, the Deputy Registrar, Information, Mr Olubunmi Ajibade, told this reporter on phone that the university had approved the results of the Part-time students up to 2011, including the backlog of 2006 and 2007 set.
He said: “The senate had approved the results of three sets of graduates up to 2011 before the last convocation and whoever has not got his result now must either be a fake student or have problems with his academics.”
But the students said that there was a gulf between them and the authorities which they said had frustrated moves to either secure succour when critically needed or nip problems in the bud.
While experiences of delays in processing results have remained a recurring decimal, other issues like outright loss of, or missing examination scripts which has led to undeserved repeats of students appear too common not to merit repeated mention.
Findings confirmed several cases of victims of missing scripts in the faculty of education and others.
“I know of someone who came in 1996 and is still in the school today. Remember some of the PT students wrote something in the papers recently, many just continue to push on. They engage in other activities when attempts to find solutions have not really yielded results,” one student said.
He also claimed that some students graduate without paying fees and are not detected.
“Let me cite the cases of those who could be in their final year and have never paid any school fees. How can you fathom that? I have never owed any schools fees here but we have many who would apply their school fees on some other uses and find a way to cover up. There are available ways for them with internal support. Many of them have graduated while some are in the process of escaping”, he said.
Questions are being asked about how the institution is handling issues like sexual harassment of female students by male lecturers, nebulous admission process or criteria and a seemingly infinitely elastic accommodation of so-called part-time students whose numbers are far in excess of those in regular programmes.
Confirming the presence of cult gangs, a part three student of Chemistry, said at least a minimum of 10 students must have been killed by cult groups in the past two years, asking “but how is the school dealing with this?”
Many of the students explained that cultism in this school has grown from being just “a menace to being a plague”, threatening the very existence of the institution.
Some of the students said the fear of the cultists in the school is the beginning not just of wisdom but the only assurance of life and safety.
The students said cultists operated openly within the campus and also in town, especially around places such as Adebayo-Olaoluwa, Housing Estates and Bashiri areas.
“It is some kind of imprisonment we undergo here either as students on campus or as occupants of so called hostel rooms in Ifaki,” a student said.
Another complained about accommodation making life on campus a drag.
“How is the school dealing with students’ accommodation? Most of us students are residents in Ifaki and Iworoko where life has become so miserable that one often feels it was an error to choose EKSU.”
Some of the students appealed to the authorities to be more proactive in treating the many problems faced by students in the school.
They said: “We gathered there was a time authorities of the school expelled nearly 500 students across the faculties based on findings of having secured admission through a fraudulent process. When will such be repeated to remove well known bad eggs?
How is EKSU dealing with the problems? According to the VC during an interaction with journalists recently, the issues are being resolved as committees are already in place.
He said it is not business as usual for the lecturers again as examination scripts have to be submitted and assessed within a given time frame after the examination which must be religiously kept to.
Noting that complaints of any form of harassment by the lecturers are also being handled, the VC said hostels were being built in conjunction with some private individuals on Public-Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement.
Admitting the problem of electricity, he explained that the institution had invited some owners of private hostel accommodation for students to ensure they are provided with electricity even if they would be made to pay for such.
Also defending the institution, the Registrar, Dr Omojola Awosusi, noted that there has never been a time the school was lax in rising to the issues raised. He said last year, seven senior members of staff were laid off in a sweeping purge which was not strange to the system.
Admitting that there have been reports of sexual harassment of students by lecturers which he said were few and far between, Awosusi observed that the worst harassment has remained that perpetrated by bad eggs among the students.
“The cultists and rapists are often found to be students themselves,” he said.
On the student population, he said there were about 13,000 regular students and about 10,000 part-time ones, a figure he declined to see as over-population.
Regarding the supposed over bloated part-time (PT) students population, Awosusi said students were not admitted for part-time programmes this year.
“If you make your findings, you will discover there are no students in Part One. We even want to change the ‘part-time’ to ‘distance learning’. This will bring the population down while enabling more students to attain their dreams.”
To solve the myriad of problems, a lecturer said a stakeholders’ forum has to be convened to lay bare and possibly resolve the issues.
He said despite spirited efforts of the VC to change the situation, he has not succeeded much, as the same problems keep reoccurring.
“Perhaps the student number has to be reduced through whatever means; perhaps a major disciplinary committee would come in to collect and collate data on the students; perhaps, its another means that will be used to get at the problems,” he said.