The first of the bi-annual CAMPUSLIFE Correspondents’ Workshop was held last weekend, with the theme: Building up a drug-free and non-cultist generation. PHILIP OKORODUDU (500-Level Electrical, Electronics and Computer Engineering, Delta State University), OLUWAFEMI OGUNJOBI (400-Level Language Arts, Obafemi Awolowo University), MODESTUS DIKO (400-Level Microbiology, Olabisi Onabanjo University), HALIMAH AKANBI (200-Level Law, Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto) and KINGSLEY AMATANWEZE (400-Level Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, University of Nigeria, Nsukka) report.
By 7am last Saturday, the Elizabeth Hall of Citilodge Suite, a four-star hotel in the heart of Lekki, Lagos, was set for the day’s event. After breakfast at 7:20am, the participants filed into the hall.
They were student-writers from different institutions attending the first of the three-day bi-annual CAMPUSLIFE Correspondents’ Workshop hosted by The Nation in collaboration with Coca-Cola Nigeria Limited and Nigerian Bottling Company (NBC) Limited.
With the theme: Building up a drug- free and non-cultist generation, the workshop was a platform for the re-orientation of youths on vices that have turned campuses to breeding grounds for thugs and drug addicts.
The event began with a tour of the headquarters of The Nation on Friday. Conducting the students round the media outfit, Wale Ajetunmobi, CAMPUSLIFE co-ordinator, explained the processes of newspaper production and activities of the newsroom. He also took the students to the Pre-Press and Press Hall to show them how newspapers are printed and arranged.
A few hours later, the students were at the Ikeja plant of the Coca-Cola, which is referred to as the largest producing plant in the world. Before the correspondents were taken round the facility, they were given some guidelines for the tour. These included the wearing of safety boots; moving along the safety tracks and no taking of photographs. Ms Peace Emele, a member of staff in the Public Relations Unit, conducted the students round.
A production engineer, who led the students through the process of coke production, said the production of the cola drink started from the Returnable Glass Bottle (RGB) line from where the liquid would go to the de-palletiser station and then to the un-parker, which separates the bottles from the crates to the washing machine.
According to the engineer, the bottles are washed by a machine before they are moved to the Caustic Department. To ensure that the bottles are clean, they are washed with soda and hot water after which they pass through a series of sections for perfect cleanliness, he said. The final process in the production of coke, according to the manager, is the palletiser for the packaging of the final product to ease transportation. He said at least 10 million Nigerians consume Coca-Cola products daily.
Students listened with rapt attention and the hall of the Citilodge Suite was quiet as The Nation’s Online Editor, Mr Lekan Otufodunrin, Mr Agbo Agbo and Mr Emeka Mba, Community Affairs Manager, Coca Cola Nigeria, took turns to welcome and talk to them on the activities of their firms.
At 10:10am, the first speaker, Mr Femi Falana (SAN), a rights activist, walked in. Spontaneously, the hall erupted in excitement as the students rose on sighting him.
To welcome their alumnus, students of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) in Ile-Ife, Osun State, among the participants, stood up and rendered the school anthem. Falana said he was excited to be amidst of the youths.
Speaking on the theme, Falana, who spoke extempore, said: “I have come here to engage students in what Walter Rodney called the pedagogy of the oppressed.” The expression attracted applause.
Regretting that the quality of education has fallen, Falana said during his days at the university, the average student had hope of a bright future. He said when the nation’s education was hijacked by leaders of questionable pedigree, the quality of education began a steady decline.
Blaming the rot in the economy on the leadership’s shortsightedness, Falana said: “In 1955, free primary education was initiated in the defunct Western Region. Decades after, it was nationalised and when I gained admission into the University of Ife in 1977, the bursary we got was enough to sustain us through our stay on campus. But, due to the mismanagement of the economy, all our dreams and hopes were shattered in the 1980s.”
He said: “If you engage in examination malpractices in those days, the Students’ Union Government would not celebrate you. They would sacrifice you to serve as a deterrent to others engaging in the vice. But, today, the reverse is the case. We must take up the challenge and teach our children that criminality does not pay. We now have parents buying Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) papers for their children, who could not defend the results they got through the misbegotten process.”
Criticising the present-day students’ unionism, which he described as a money-spinner for student-leaders, Falana said Students Union Governments (SUGs) have been taken over by sycophants, who only massage the ego of moneybags and politicians.
He bemoaned the failure of government to give scholarship to indigent students and the high level of corruption in the education system, noting: “The Nigeria’s ruling class is shortsighted, very unpatriotic, selfish and irresponsible.” He charged the students to rise up against criminality and reject poor living conditions on campus, saying: “It is your constitutional right to protest but make it peaceful.”
Falana, who confessed to be an avid reader of CAMPUSLIFE pages, pledged to offer legal assistance to any student who is victimised for fighting just causes.
A participant, Idris Abubakar, who is allegedly being victimised by the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), was told by the lawyer to contact him for free legal assistance.
He stressed that drug abuse, gangsterism, cultism, were vices not synonymous with students during his undergraduate days.
Falana deplored what he calls the extreme religious inclination of Nigerians and the government, which he said spends public funds to offset private religious needs.
“Nigeria is the only country where you can block the only major road just because you want to pray. Ours is the only country in any modern world that pays people to go to Jerusalem and Mecca. Billions that should be spent on education and eradicating dangerous diseases in the country are used for these purposes. Even some of those who have looted the country’s treasury go to churches and mosques to say their prayers.
“I have read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, no less than five times, because that was the only book you could read when I was in detention, and I did not see where it was decreed that a Christian shall perform any pilgrimage with sponsorship from the government.”
To cleanse the society and rid the polity of anomalies, Falana charged the students to expose their friends and family members that are criminals. He urged the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) to retrace its step from being sycophantic, saying the students’ body must be revolutionary and progressive as it used to be in the 1970s.
Quoting Franz Fanon to end the session, Falana said: “The future will have no pity on those youths who have the opportunity to challenge their oppressors but have taken solace to act as neutral observers.”
He challenged the students to deploy the social media as a tool to engage leadership and transform the country.
After his lecture, representatives of the student-writers presented CAMPUSLIFE branded shirt in appreciation of his coming.
Mrs. Stella Ngwoke, Assistant Director, Narcotics, Drug Demand Reduction, Nigeria Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), took the students on the effects of drug abuse.
Mrs. Ngwoke defined drug abuse as the use of illicit drugs or the abuse of prescription drugs for purposes other than those for which they are indicated or in a manner or quantity other than directed. She said the abuse of drugs among young people of between 11 and 35 years was not a weakness but a sickness which causes real changes in the brain, causing the user to crave for the intake of more of the destructive substances.
Listing some of the drugs being abused by the youths, Mrs. Ngwoke said alcohol remained the most commonly abused substance in the world. Drug abuse afflicts all countries.
Urging parents to caution their children against the use of harmful substances, Mrs. Ngwoke said: “Give clear messages that using drugs is not acceptable; don’t assume that your child knows your views. Parents must be good and active listeners and be alert to both spoken and implied messages of their children during discussions. Parents must know their children’s whereabouts because children who are not monitored are at greater risk of drug use at earlier age. Unsupervised parties or activities are open invitations to drug use and parents must have open, honest and sincere conversations with their children on the consequences of using hard drugs.”
After the workshop, the students engaged in humanitarian service. They visited Treasure of Love Missionaries of Charity at Alapere in Ketu, a Lagos suburb. They were received by Sister Lilly, an Indian Catholic devotee, who took them round the home to see the children being taken care of.
“In line with Mother Theresa’s philosophy of charity, this home was established in Lagos in 1993 to cater for children that are physically-challenged, abandoned by their parents or stigmatised because of a particular disease or infection. They are children that were picked in trash cans, under the bridge, on the streets and slums. Even, normal ones are also adopted,” Sister Lilly said.
Explaining the drive behind the orphanage, Sister Lilly said: “God is seen in these children and with the hope of a bright future.”
Asked how the home is funded, she said all it depends on were divine grace and donations from religious bodies, corporate organisations and well-meaning individuals.
Some of the materials donated included three cartons of diapers, treated mosquito nets and cartons of water. For about 30 minutes, the student-writers played with the children, who were happy to see them.
Gilbert Alasa, 400-Level Foreign Languages, University of Benin (UNIBEN), said: “I was moved to tears seeing the abandoned children with such physical and mental disabilities. I saw despair in their eyes. I felt the pain of loneliness in their voices and a yearning for some love. I think it is important we find time to visit these forsaken flock and feel their pulse. We can only build a cohesive society when we take moral actions to save these fellows on the other side of the spectrum.”
Damilola Olayemi, Mass Communication graduate, Redeemer’s University (RUN), said: “It is not in their self-will to have found themselves at this side of life and so giving to them equates to sowing into destinies to fulfil purposes.”
On Sunday, the students returned to their campuses, with majority of them saying they had been turned to change agents by the sponsors of the event.
