‘Gods’ on Campus
A Lamentation by Obaniyi Jason Olamide
In Nigeria, there is a growing wave of the emergence of gods on higher institution campuses and the irresponsible flaunting of their ‘powers.’ Nigerian students are subject to all forms of abuse, sexual, emotional, physical, academic, and so on, and it seems there are no solutions in sight.
The Nigeria Ministry of Education seems to be blind to this growing menace and unbothered by the consequent effect on the academic products injected into the labour force or prevented from further advancements in life.
Suppose you travel through the campuses; universities, Polytechnic, COEs and technical schools, and listen to the different forms of abuse students go through at the hands of their lecturers, professors, supervisors and even non-academic staff, you will lament the decadence as much as I am in this article or even more.
I have not travelled through all the states of the federation but the news and accounts of these abuses have travelled faster than the wind can move from East to West.
Even when these students try to pursue what is right, the lecturers victimize them, gang up with their friends and ensure that the student fails multiple times or is even sent from school. This has made many of them to keep mute and suffer in silence
In a University in North Central, a student was in a Computer-based continuous assessment (CBT) and had issues with the laptop. Her system went off on two separate occasions before she could finish her tests. She complained to the course coordinator and her matriculation number was noted. After a while, the results were pasted on the notice board, she failed the test. This is expected, as she did not finish the test. She then went to the office of the course coordinator to refile her complaint but was shouted at and sent away. the same thing happened to more than 10 other students on the same test.
In another school, and regularly in many schools across the country, a lecturer failed a group of students because they didn’t purchase his books. They didn’t fail because they didn’t know the answers to the test and exam questions, they failed because their names and matriculation numbers were not on the list of students who bought his book or a photocopy of his hand-written note.
This growing irregularity needs urgent attention if Nigeria hopes to brag about a good education sector or programme, one that is capable of competing worldwide
A student had his over six hundred thousand naira phone (>#600,000) smashed to the rock for violating the instruction not to attend an exam with phones. I do not support disobedience to instructions, and neither do I fancy an irresponsible and disgusting caveman approach in a ‘supposed’ civilized society. The school has a disciplinary protocol for such things. why should a lecturer smash any student’s phone?
Students' hairs are bastardised with scissors in classrooms for not conforming to the lecturer’s desire for a shorter or single-coloured type. Some others are slapped for rejecting an insult to their parents or guardians.
We have worked tirelessly to curb the menace of sexual manipulations and harassment by lecturers. it lingers but has reduced drastically. This is another problem that needs proper address.
It is no longer news that lecturers in almost all the federal schools across the country come to class to threaten students with the following words; “A is for God (some of them say A does not exist in their dictionary), B is for me (or my wife), C is for the best students, D, E and F is for the rest of you.” Many times, people laugh about these things, but the reality is damning for the present and the future of the youth and the country at large.
Some lecturers narrate facing disciplinary or querying panels to explain themselves because “too many students passed their courses.” It is as though the department has a vendetta against any student or group of students attempting to pass with flying colours.
It irritates me whenever I hear about the different experiences of students at the hands of ‘gods on campus.’ It boils my veins and worries my mind that the youths in Nigeria are victimized everywhere they are or go. They are not safe on the streets because of trigger-happy policemen. They are also not safe in their higher institutions because of the ‘gods on their campus.’
There is also social abuse that is brooding on campuses these days; the subjection of students to academic activities on unofficial and non-academic days, Saturdays and Sundays. Every lecturer has a schedule but many of them will not show up when they should, and with no explanation. Then when exams are in a few weeks, they bombard their students with activities, including Sundays.
Some of these ‘lazy’ or absent lecturers even threaten to set exams on the topics they have not taken if the students will not allow them to use Sundays for lectures.
What time do the students have for themselves? When do they get to do their social functions, cook food, take care of themselves, and their immediate environment and balance their mental state with a dose of some non-academic activities?
It is unfair! And I think I speak for several students when I say “Enough is enough.” We want these ‘gods on our campuses’ checked and regulated. We want to see them prosecuted by the school senates. We want to see them suffer the consequences of abuse in a civilised society if we pride ourselves on being one!
