Last Tuesday renaming of the University of Lagos to Moshood Abiola University, Lagos, by President Goodluck Jonathan has, since the announcement, become a subject of controversy. Nigerians have been sharply divided by the president’s decision, which, to some, smirked of crass insensitivity and an avowed display of civilian authoritarianism.
To some, however, the renaming of the prestigious university was done in good faith. They see it as a way of honouring the memories of those who lost their lives in the struggle for the enthronement of democratic institutions in the country.
Perhaps, no other discourse in the recent times has divided the country since the protest that greeted the January 2012 fuel subsidy removal and its consequential effect on fuel price increase. Many in the country at the peak of the January crisis kicked against the subsidy removal, citing various reasons. A handful of people in the country, on the other hand, sided with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)-controlled government, claiming the decision was in the interest of people in the country.
Another thorny issue that has currently divided Nigerians along the binary divides of president’s action or inaction is the renaming of the University of Lagos.
A student of the institution told journalists in Lagos that the reason some of them would die having the name of their university unchanged was its name. He said he would never go to any university other than UNILAG, because of the emotional attachment that he and his parents had for the institution.
President Goodluck Jonathan has, however, justified his action of renaming the university, hinging the action on the need to honour the memory of Bashorun MKO Abiola, the acclaimed winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, whose martyrdom berthed democracy in Nigeria.
President Jonathan said in his May 29 Democracy Day speech that, “the Federal Government has decided that the late Chief M.K.O. Abiola be honoured, for making the ultimate sacrifice in the pursuit of justice and truth. Destiny and circumstances conspired to place upon his shoulders a historic burden, and he rose to the occasion with character and courage. He deserves recognition for his martyrdom, and public-spiritedness and for being the man of history that he was.”
The president did not mince words to declare Chief Moshood Kasimawo Abiola, the winner of the 1993 presidential election, as a selfless, courageous and uncompromising advocate of social justice, whose achievements should not be reduced to mere conjectures, but worthy of immortilisation.
His Information Minister, Mr. Labaran Maku, had, last Wednesday, said; “the decision has been made in very good faith by Mr. President and we have seen the reactions by a section of the students of University of Lagos. We have also seen the outpouring of encomiums by patriots and statesmen who really understand the reasons the president honoured Abiola.
“It is our hope that reason will prevail and that the decision to honour one of our nation’s icons and heroes will be appreciated by all Nigerians, including our youths and students who are the future leaders of this country.”
The Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Professor Julius Okojie, has also praised the government’s decision, declaring that it had come to stay. He noted that process of reflecting the renaming the school after Abiola had started. According to him, “there is nothing you do in the university these days that students won’t react to.
“We have heard University of Ife changed in 1987; we have heard University of Sokoto changed to Usman Dan Fodio; we have heard Yola, (now) Modibbo Adamawa University; we have Nnamdi Azikwe which was University of Awka before. This is about the seventh.”
The governors of South-West states have similarly supported President Jonathan’s move, describing it as an enviable way to recognise the role of the Aare Ona Kakanfo in the enthronement of democracy in the country.
While speaking on behalf of the governors at the State House after their meeting with President Jonathan, Ekiti State governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, who was also an alumnus of the university, said the protesting students of the institution might not understand the import of the pivotal role played by the late Abiola in Nigeria.
Said he; “I know that the president means well by acknowledging the role that Chief Abiola played in securing this democracy we are all enjoying. As an activist of that era myself, I could not stress enough the importance of the role that Chief Abiola played.”
He disclosed that most of the students of the institutions were oblivious of the personality and charisma of Chief Abiola, adding that largest crop of the students were not born during the June 12, 1993 election and the subsequent struggle that followed the incident, which eventually engulfed the chief and one of his wives, Kudirat, as well as many pro-democracy activists in the country.
It is pertinent to recall that the late Abiola died in incarceration in an attempt to actualise his mandate, which was annulled by the military regime of Ibrahim Babangida shortly after the presidential election in 1993. Professor Humphrey Nwosu, the chairman of the defunct National Electoral Commission (NEC), the body that conducted the election, had in recent time, said Chief Abiola of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) actually won the election having defeated his National Republican Convention (NRC) opponent, Alhaji Bashir Tofa, in a landslide victory.
When Governor Fayemi declared that the students were clearly out of touch with the historical actuality that berthed the June 12 struggle and the eventual enthronement of democracy in the land, it could not have turned out to be a mere political statement.
His sentiment was also shared by the former presidential aspirant of Labour Party (LP), Chief Dele Momodu. He said the protesting students could not connect with the June 12 struggle, because they were either not born then or very little.
The fiasco generated by the renaming of the university has also led to the closure of the institution for two weeks.
Citing the reason he denounced President Jonathan’s renaming of the university, Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, disclosed in a statement, entitled; Goodluck Jonathan’s Gift Horse that the re-christening was a “gift horse which, contrary to traditional saying, must be inspected thoroughly in the mouth.”
Soyinka added that, “President Goodluck Jonathan did not even think it fit to consult or inform the administrators of the university, including Council and Senate, of his intention to re-name their university for any reason, however laudable. This arbitrariness, this act of disrespect, was a barely tolerated aberration of military governance. It is totally deplorable in what is supposed to be a civilian order.
“The university, solidly backed by other tertiary institutions nation-wide, should immediately proceed to the courts of law and demand a ‘stay of execution’. That should give President Jonathan time to re-consider and, perhaps, shift his focus to the nation’s capital for institutions begging for rituals of re-naming. After all, it is on record that the House of Assembly did once resolve that the Abuja stadium be named after the man already bestowed the unique title of “Pillar of African Sports.” He deserved that and a lot more.
“What he did not deserve is to be, albeit posthumously, the centre of a fully avoidable acrimony, one that has now resulted in the shutting down of one of the institutions of learning to whose cause, the cause of learning, President-elect MKO Abiola also made unparalleled private contributions.
“Let me end by stressing that my position remains the same as it was when the University of Ife was re-named Obafemi Awolowo University. I deplored it at the time, deplore it till today, have never come to terms with it, and still hope that someday, in the not too distant future, that crime against the culture of institutional autonomy will be rectified.”
Toeing the same line of thought, legal luminary, Chief Afe Babalola, SAN, said the renaming of the institution after the late Chief Abiola was “noble,” but illegal.
According to the former Pro-Chancellor and Chairman, Governing Council of the university, “it is pertinent to state that I do not entirely agree with the manner in which the government has gone about its decision. To my mind, a decision to honour the sacrifice of a man such as the late Bashorun MKO Abiola requires much more thoughtfulness and thoroughness than that which the current decision seems to display.
“I take this view in the light of the obvious illegality and unconstitutionality of the decision to change the name of the University of Lagos to Moshood Abiola University, Lagos. The university is a creation of statute.
“Everything relating to the university, including its name, administration and control, is provided and regulated by statute, therefore, necessitating that any action taken in respect of the university must comply with the provisions of the law.
“Being an Act of the National Assembly, the provisions of the University of Lagos Act can only be amended by another Act of the National Assembly. Prior to the decision of the Federal Government to change the name of the university, no amendment was made to the provisions of the University of Lagos Act.
“The decision of Mr. President, ostensibly acting in concert with the Federal Executive Council, amounts to a usurpation of the powers of the National Assembly. Section 4 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, as amended, confers Legislative Powers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on the National Assembly which consists of the Senate and the House of Representatives.”
Chief Babalola, who was also the late Abiola’s lawyer during the struggle, added that the Act did not “empower him to unilaterally direct or effect a change in the name of the university. I state this for the following reasons: The powers of the visitor are as expressly contained in the University of Lagos Act.
“It is settled that where power is vested in any individual or body, such body or individual cannot exceed the powers which had been so vested. To do so would be to act ultra vires. A careful perusal of the provisions of Section 16 of the Act will reveal that the exercise of the powers vested in the visitor of the university must be consistent with the provisions of the Act.
“Clearly, a unilateral change in the name of the university from that stated in Section 1 of the Act cannot, under any guise, be regarded as consistent with the provisions of the Act.”
President, Nigerian Academy of Science (NAS), Professor Oye Ibidapo-Obe, quipped that; “This is the most inappropriate time to make such a decision. It shows that the president is insensitive; this is a period of mourning. That decision to rename the university should not have been disclosed at this time. Education is not in the forefront. I’m sure President Jonathan did not make any consultation before going ahead with the decision to rename the university.”
Vice-Chancellor, Ekiti State University, Professor P. O. Aina, as well as the Provost, College of Medicine, UNILAG, Professor Oluwole Atoyebi, also joined other stakeholders to denounce the renaming.
The university’s Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) chairman, Dr. Oghenekaro Ogbinaka, re-echoed the angst of the institution’s students against the renaming, saying it was unacceptable.
In an interview he granted during the week, he noted that; “the Federal Government of Nigeria has chosen the wrong institution, because UNILAG is a brand that its stakeholders have laboured for 50 years to build. We are not ready to sacrifice this; as the implication of so doing is enormously disastrous to those who attended the university, who are in the university and who aspire to come into the university.”
Also, in what appears to be a denunciation of Jonathan’s decision by the Senate, Leader of the Senate, Victor Ndoma-Egba, was reported to have said that the National Assembly was yet to receive any bill detailing the renaming of the university.
But other opinion moulders have also queried some of the grounds on which the action of the Federal Government is being questioned.
For example, reacting to Dr. Ogbinaka’s quip, an Abuja-based lawyer, Mr. Chukwu Edibe, queried the logic behind the lecturer’s remark. He said: “As genuine as his (Dr. Ogbinaka’s) concern appears to be, it is uncertain how changing an institution’s name will affect its fortune. Will that diminish the quality of certificates issued by the university? How will the change plummet the university’s rating in the country and internationally? What is in names? What factors built the brand, UNILAG? How will the factors (uninterrupted academic calendar, a pool of world-class teaching staff, beautiful structures, good teaching and learning equipment, the successes recorded by alumni of the university in different facets of life and many others) diminish or devalue due to change of name?”
An educationist, Dr. Sotunde Adeyemo, said examples abounded of universities which were renamed and had not lost their glory all over the world. According to him, “the popular Havard University, USA, was named after John Havard, its first benefactor, after he donated a large sum of money and his private library to the university.
“It used to be Ivy League Research University established by Massachusetts legislature in 1636. The academic and research prowess of the university did not change after its renaming. The brand, Havard, has become a popular brand because of its past records and its continuous strife to remain world’s leading centre for training future leaders and conducting researches.”
His submission reinforced the raison d’être for the merging of three universities: the University of Port Elizabeth, the Port Elizabeth Technikon and the Port Elizabeth campus of Vista University in South Africa, and their subsequent re-christening as Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) in 2005, despite the history of the university which dates back to 1882.
Also, a lecturer in the embattled university, who craved anonymity, said there was nothing wrong with the renaming of the university, since it was not the first of its kind.
“The then University of Ife, which was renamed Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) is one of the best in the country. Its renaming by Babangida administration in 1987 was also greeted with hue and cry, but the acronym, OAU, is now a popular brand the world over; students of the institutions have even used their ingenuity to nickname it Oba Awon Universities (OAU), meaning king among other universities. The OAU lesson is that of enduring brand sustained by traditions of academic excellence and breakthroughs in research conduct,” he noted.
The don, who is a linguist, said it was instructive to note that brands or names “are mere signifiers or linguistic structures that human minds attribute to an object or idea. They are human perception of the world and ways of organising experience, with no regard to objective entity existing in the external world.
“Swiss linguist-structuralist, Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913), shared the foregoing sentiment when he said words (from which names are formed) were arbitrary and ‘unmotivated signs” and have no connections whatsoever with what they signify,” he added.
Other Nigerians who spoke with Sunday Tribune over the issue averred that same could be said about Nnamdi Azikiwe University, a federal university named after Nigeria’s first indigenous governor-general, Dr. Nnamdi Azikwe. The university used to be Anambra State University of Technology (ASUTECH), established in 1980 by the government of the old Anambra. It became a federal university in 1992 following the break of old Anambra into Anambra and Enugu states.
They also said that Michael Okapara University, Umudike, Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Ado Bayero University, Kano, were all Federal Government-owned universities and named after iconic personalities, saying their names were popular brands among comity of universities in Nigeria.
When contacted on phone, a member of the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP’s) Board of Trustees (BoT), Chief Ebenezer Babatope, OFR, said that the alumni meeting of the university had been convened, nothing that he could not speak on the matter, until the meeting was held.
However, in what many have described as a bold and instructive move, the family of the late Abiola has, in a letter of appreciation to President Jonathan, cited examples of tertiary institutions that had been named after the late business mogul in other countries.
The letter also made a note of the contributions of the politician to the educational sector in Nigeria, besides being the martyr of democracy in the country.
The letter, signed by Chief Mubashiru Abiola, Chief (Mrs.) Adebisi Abiola, Chief (Mrs.) Omolola Abiola Edewor, Alhaji Olalekan Abiola, Miss Ayobami Abiola, Alhaji Jamiu Abiola, Mrs. Bolanle Akande and Mr. Abdul Abiola on behalf of the family, noted that the family had been baffled with efforts of previous governments to bury “the uncommon heroism of MKO Abiola.”
“As our leader you chose the time and manner that you would honour this great Nigerian. It was without our input but with our full approval. His sacrifices and contributions across every sphere of public life are too numerous to list. There has never been a philanthropist on the scale of Abiola in the history of Nigeria. His oft-repeated life’s ambition was to touch the life of very Nigerian one way or another. He may have succeeded in the area of education alone.
“In March 1990, he donated N1 million (equivalent of N40 million in 2010) to each state university, N50,000 (N2 million in 2010) to each federal university for students’ welfare, N20, 000 (N800,000 in 2010) to libraries of each of the federal universities and N25, 000 (N1 million in 2010) to each polytechnic and college of education.
“He is credited with the construction of 63 secondary schools and 41 libraries. He established Abiola Bookshops to provide affordable locally-produced textbooks in the 1980s when imported textbooks became out of the reach of ordinary Nigerians when the naira was devalued. He awarded over 1,000 scholarships to deserving students in tertiary institutions at home and abroad. In addition to those awarded by the Federal Government, MKO Abiola awarded bursaries to every single student from Ogun State. For every N500 they received from from the Federal Government, they received N250 from MKO Abiola. To delve into his contributions in sports, culture and welfare would turn this letter into a thesis,” the family said.
They went further to remind the president of the Yoruba high chief to politics before his death, stating that, “in politics as in philanthropy, he is unequalled. He broke tribal and religious barriers to a clear victory. He chose the path of valour and fought for the collective will of Nigerians from the four corners of this nation and everywhere in between. He willingly returned from exile, knowing the consequencies of that action, prepared to pay with his life. The circumstances of his death shook the polity to its foundations and established the democracy we enjoy today, by far the longest period of rule by the people in our history. He lost his wife, the late Alhaja Kudirat Abiola, and his businesses were decimated. Yet, he voluntarily stayed in detention, rejecting conditional release. He died refusing to betray the mandate given to him by those who betray his memory today.
“No honour is too great for one of the men and women who laid down their lives for the democracy we enjoy today, that enables some to take to the streets, uttering irresponsible, abhorrent nonsense. We take a leaf from your book and illustrate the line, “help our youth the truth to know.” The government of Egypt named a school after Abiola in appreciation of his contribution after a devastating earthquake.
Egyptians did not take to the streets, yet, to their eternal shame, some people in Lagos did. But as the great man would say, as one is crying, one should still see. The machinations and motives of those sponsoring protests are obvious. If 13 years of deafening silence from the Federal Government built on the blood of this man could not diminish his legacy, the actions of a few hooligans and rascals with no sense of history will certainly not.”
Written by CODED-ish
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