New Telegraph

Obafemi Awolowo University and its randy professors

The Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Osun State, South West Nigeria, which was established over 60 years ago, which became the cynosure of all eyes shortly after, has sadly degenerated into a citadel of learning operating on past glory.

 

This is because it has become a trail-blazer in sex scandal, cultism resulting into death and other criminal activities. Corroborating this assertion, The Punch newspaper published on June 21, 2022, the university topped the list of institutions with the highest number of lecturers indicted for sexual misconduct.

 

The report reads-in-part: “In 2021 OAU dismissed three lecturers from the Departments of English, International Relations and Accounting over sexual harassment of students.”

 

The latest in the series of sexual assault was levelled against a Professor of Yoruba Incantations and Stylistics in the Department of Linguistics and African Languages, Joseph Opefeyitimi. In a statement signed by the Public Relations Officer of the university, Abiodun Olanrewaju on April 20, 2022, the said victim, Boluwatife Bababunmi petitioned the university’s management, accusing the professor of sexual assault in his office.

 

The university launched a probe into the allegation before he was found culpable and dismissed. It is important to note that the first Nigerian professor sentenced to six years over sex harassment was a lecturer at OAU. Justice Maurin Onyetenu of the Federal High Court, Osogbo while delivering her judgment on December 18 2018 noted that: “…the rampant cases of students’ harassment by lecturers should be stopped.

 

The case is endemic.” But since Akindele was used as a scapegoat, the occurrence has not stopped. This is largely attributable to the policy formulation and implementation in the Nigerian system.

 

However, the Nigerian Senate in 2021 passed a bill that randy lecturers should be subjected to 21 years imprisonment. This is meant to eradicate the nefarious activities in Nigerian tertiary institutions, but amazingly most of the lecturers so indicted and found guilty were simply sacked.

 

The sex-for-marks dons’ escapades are not the only activities that hold sway in the university. In 1999, on Saturday July 10, at 4.30am, the university community woke up to witness a violent and gruesome attack at OAU, allegedly perpetrated by 40 masked members of the Black Axe confraternity who wore black trousers, black T-shirts and face masks.

 

The incident which shook the whole of Ife township left five students, including George Iwilade, the then Secretary- General of the Students’ Union dead, while 11 others were injured.

Professor Rogers Makanjuola, who later became the Vice-Chancellor, OAU in his book entitled: ‘Water Must Flow Uphill ( Adventures In The University Administration)’, shortly after the attack wrote: “Allegations that this assassination of prominent Student Union members was sponsored by the university’s Vice-Chancellor, Wale Omole remain to this day, but it is unclear if this is the case.

It is said one of the cultists, Kazeem Bello a.k.a ‘Kato’ confessed that Wale Omole had a hand in their July 10 dastardly operation.”

The choice of their Vice-Chancellors is no less rancorous. Pioneer Vice-Chancellor, First Technical University Ibadan Professor Ayobami Salami in May, 2022 recalled how some members of a confraternity were contracted to kill him when he was appointed as the Vice-Chancellor, Obafemi Awolowo University in 2017. His appointment was subsequently cancelled due to a crisis that rocked the process even after getting his letter of appointment. He revealed that the adversity he suffered was almost endless.

The story of the newly inaugurated Professor Simeon Bamire is no less different as protests, which almost developed into violence, coupled with allegations of fetish objects from the host Ife community almost marred the process before the university was shut down. Professor Oluwole Akinwande Soyinka in his characteristic manner raised his voice by calling for decorum over the protest. He (Soyinka) couldn’t have done otherwise because the career of the1986, and black man’s first Nobel laureate soared at the university.

Perhaps he did not take cognisance of the degeneration that has bedevilled the institution since he left. Frustration of students under their tutelage is also the hallmark of the university.

My master’s degree in International Relations which I completed in 1992, and which was so certified by Mrs. Mary Oyewole, the then secretary, Post Graduate School at that time but which was allegedly manipulated by Professor Olusola Ojo, who was head of department then, is yet to be issued to me 30 years after.

 

Professor Eyitope Ogunbodede, the immediate past Vice-Chancellor, who told me on January 15, 2022 that Professor Olusola Ojo, who was at the centre of everything, did not do anything to the request letter he instructed me to write till he handed over to the current Vice-Chancellor Professor Simeon Bamire.

 

Ogunbodede had promised to conduct an investigation, but a few weeks into his tenure, the letter he requested me to put forward was lying unattended when I visited his office at Ile-Ife, according to his secretary. I am therefore through this medium appealing to the National Universities’ Commission to wade in

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