Dealing with the cocktail of suicide among students of OAU

May their souls rest in peace, the young deceased students of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, who have mournfully been committed to mother earth as a result of suicide. It is unfortunate that the rate of suicide among OAU students is alarming, causing grief among parents, loved ones, and sympathisers from the university―students, lecturers and management. Most appalling, in recent time, was the report of the unfortunate suicide of Mr Adedeji Emmanuel, a part 2 student of the Department of Management and Accounting, Faculty of Administration, on Monday April 19, 2021. Although, investigation is ongoing to formally establish the circumstances surrounding his death, according to the Chief Security Officer (CSO) of OAU, Mr Babatunde Oyatokun, who has also advised students to seek psychosocial support at the Counselling Unit of the university when dealing with psychological and academic issues.

Apart from the suicide of Mr Adedeji Emmanuel, a trio of Ms Mercy Olamide Afolaranmi, a part 1 student of the Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Biological Sciences; Mr Kolapo Olowoporoku, an extra year student of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Faculty of Technology; and Ms Opeyemi Grace Dara, a part 4 student of the Department of English, Faculty of Art also committed suicide on October 10, 2017; April 19, 2019; and August 2, 2019, respectively. However, why are we having a cocktail of suicide among students of OAU? This question is directed to everyone who cares to see a halt to suicide among students of OAU, largely by way of logical reasoning in a discussion on prevention of suicide among these students, with a minimum of round-hole-square-peg misalignment.

In view of this increasing rate of suicide among students of OAU, one may be tempted to introspect the minds of the deceased students before they hopelessly committed this dishonourable act. This psychological approach to investigating the cause of suicide among students of OAU may appear ambiguous, although, in specific to recent situations in OAU, certain conditions, which, nevertheless, must definitely be responsible for suicide among these new generation students of OAU.

Mostly, psychosocial frustration, not mutually exclusive of economic pressure, depression, hopelessness, shame, social neglect, and psychosis, have, of course, been attributed to suicide. But as a former undergraduate student of OAU in those days, incidents of suicide were hardly reported on campus, not because we were not found within the attributes that were hitherto mentioned as some of the hypothetical causes of suicide, but a careful analytical narrative of the changing temperature in OAU tends to provide some reasons for the recurrent cases of suicide among these new generation students of OAU.

Moreover, the reality of academic life in OAU has been shaped by the policy dynamics of the university management and, also, the resilience of students in the different historical epochs of the university. This reflection is technically not to blame the deceased, any individual, or group―my condolences to the families of the victims―but an opinion directed to whoever is in position of power, to, by goodwill or legislation, fast-track the improvement of the socioeconomic situations of the people vis-à-vis the students, and, specifically, to the management of OAU, to, also, promote progressive policies on campus that could goodly avert the recurrence of suicide among students of OAU. Perhaps the failure to prevent premeditated self-killing among students of OAU is all our faults, with no exemption to the dearth of students articulation against injustice on campus (i.e. a luta continua), which, for long, in the past, represents the beauty of Great Ife, Articulate Ife, Ever-conscious Ife, down to reciting the Great Ife anthem… to the final five star salute of Great Great Great Great Greattttt!!! This assertion, significantly, points to students’ failure to rise up against anti-students policies on campus, which, I think, is partly responsible for the troubled psychology of the present students of OAU, in terms of low academic morale and poor students’ welfare.

Likewise, the legacy of resisting all manners of injustice on campus has completely become unpopular among these new generation students of OAU. In fact, neither do these new generation students of OAU know the benefits of students’ unionization against injustice on campus nor the power of “a luta” against all oppressions. Remarkably, I met a vibrant students’ union government (SUG) after my admission to study in OAU, but, unfortunately, I left one that was deplorably embroiled in power struggle shortly before I graduated, consequent upon the infiltration of false consciousness by some beneficiaries of money bags. Down through memory lane was the powerful ranting of Great Ife salute by OAU comrades before broadcasting to students some challenging situations on campus, specifically, in front of each of the hostels by brilliant socialist-minded representatives of SUG. It is also in the history of OAU that students’ union comrades had successfully in the past grounded the entire university community to a halt until their demands for justice were met. In the past, also, OAU has had powerful SUGs that counterbalanced the decisions of the university management in favour of the interests of OAU students.

But, do we still have a petite reflection of the revolutionary spirits of the past OAU comrades, who emboldened the strength of OAU students’ union against any form of injustice on campus among these new generation students of OAU? Whereas instructive to probe the vanishing art of rhetoric of the past presidents of OAU students’ union, which, in those memorable days, stimulated the “forward ever” sensibilities of Great Ife students and then culminated in mass convergence of students, firstly, at the theatre of hope (i.e. OAU amphitheatre) in anticipation of passionately listening to talks on the revolutionary tactics to be adopted by comrades to achieve the demands of students, and, secondly, the subsequent great march to the Vice-Chancellor’s lounge, back to campus gate, movement of protesting students through Ile-Ife town, to Ooni of Ife’s palace, for which students had the privilege of relaying their grievances against the university management to Ooni Orisa, and back to campus, while the whole university community and Ile-Ife town were held spellbound until justice was achieved.

Every Great Ife alumnus has a story to tell about certain unique experience of studentship at the Oba Awon Universities (OAU). We studied energetically round the clock in a peaceful campus environment that allows safe movements of students from the various halls of residence (Angola, Mozambique, Awolowo, Alumni, Moremi, Fajuyi, and Akintola) to the academic environment, even to its deepest end, like Ajose lecture theatre and Faculty of Agriculture. Although, with all our Jackie adventure (all work no play), our lecturers still told us that A grade belongs to God. Truly, at times, we experienced frustration and trauma after we missed unavoidable impromptu tests.

While, also, amid serious academic pressure of reading close to mid-semester tests and examinations, we suffered certain kind of knowledge overloads in what psychologists described as cognitive dissonance―by the time our heads have gone wired with too much information to grapple with, thus, entrapped in apprehensive feelings of where examination questions could be prorated from the arrays of topics that were taught from the course outlines, based on lecturers’ goals of reflecting the anticipated learning objectives.

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Nevertheless, Great Ife students remained strong and resilient, even during the financial crunch that was associated with examination periods. Despite this fact, I reminisced on the sight of the formation of hot plates in fronts of each of the rooms along the corridors of Awolowo Hall and Fajuyi Hall, with cooked beans oozing strong aroma of food that was ready for some of us to join our friends in devouring their meals for situational survival. Perhaps the examination periods were sometimes electrifying, with fun created by some highly hilarious students of OAU in different male hostels, especially in Awolowo Hall where some funny psychotic displays (i.e. aro, in our own cliché) were exhibited in front of several students, which helped to calm our nerves from the pressure of academic coldness. Also, we took our academic seriously, although, we still had some student-badoos, who were called NFA (i.e. no future ambition), and who do not know when the ovation was loudest for them to limit their regular visits to students’ union building (SUB) where beer and cigarettes were spontaneously served; or limit their dating search for Jambito (i.e. the newly admitted part 1 students) in Mozambique Hall―the dating search that a significant number of male sophomores and other senior undergraduate students got involved at the beginning of every academic session. But, unfortunately, although, students have since been shut out of SUB since the last six to eight years.

Interestingly as students of OAU in those days, we engaged ourselves in different things to unwind and drench the psychological tension of schooling in OAU, such as organizing rave where different musicians entertained us; Kegites gyrated at old-buka―now demolished in place of a new ICAN lecture theatre, Faculty of Administration Extension, and a new Department of Music; club boys peacefully did their things; several students engaged in different sporting activities at the OAU sports centre; while other students took solace in God, rejoiced and worshipped at the different campus fellowships in OAU.

Importantly as well, all manners of vices on campus were vehemently prohibited by the presence of powerful SUGs in OAU. Every student was mindful of the horrific stories of “coffee room” where “maximum shishi” (i.e. merciless beating) took place every time students were caught in the act of stealing, cultism, physical oppressions of fellow students, and many other unacceptable conducts. In fact, I am proud to say that our Mozambique queens, Moremi queens etc. (i.e. OAU beautiful and brilliant female students) in those days were moulded to be decent by OAU mission statement, “for learning and culture” that permeated their soft souls and shaped their conducts during their tertiary education, which, I believe, has made them to be real mothers, typical of sumptuous pinnacle of success, aura, grandeur, and role models extraordinaire.

Presently, however, the scholarly climate in OAU has significantly changed from what it used to be. This climatic change in OAU scholarly milieu has tended to manifest from the general perception of the hopelessness of millions of graduates in Nigeria, which is now redefining our educational value-system that is consistently corresponding with high unemployment rate; poor students guidance, counselling and upbringing; pitiable students’ welfare on campus; unregulated service charges on campus; increasing cost of tuition fees; absence of students’ solidarity; infiltration of yahoo boys on campus, who camouflage as bitcoin and forex investors; overcrowded lecture rooms, due to increasing number of admitted students; awful misbehavior of transport workers on campus transport route (i.e. operators of campus-Sabo-Lagere transport route); poor hostel conditions, with shocking reports of about 60% of students of OAU being evicted from campus hostels, leaving many of them with no option than to live in off-campus self-apartments at the rate of 100,000 naira to 600,000 naira a year. Can you imagine the impact of such eviction policy on the psychology and academic performance of students of OAU? Definitely, frustration, distraction and trauma may manifest from the inability of these indigent students of OAU to secure decent accommodation during the course of their tertiary education, which, by supposition, could bring about suicide. This is not to entirely blame the university management for causing suicide among students of OAU, but part of the fund from the government initiated Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), which, I believe, has part of it for hostel construction and staff training, could urgently be utilised for students’ welfare and students’ academic benefits, respectively, for the greatest good of the greatest number.

Recounting the drift in focus among the new generation students of OAU is a huge difference from the past generation. The culture of vigorous academic indulgence is fast disappearing among the new generation students of OAU. This observation has been attributed to social change as reflected in Darwinian evolutionary theory―a transition from older phenomena to the age of information big bang that was engendered by information communication technology (ICT)―a new beginning of human distractions from the core values of societies. ICT has its good, but, also, a very good distraction for these new generation students of OAU, if the tech is not positively utilised. Anyway, some of these students of OAU have, notably, utilised ICT to enrich their store of knowledge, while others have, obviously, allowed social networking sites, such as Facebook, WhatsApp, QQ, WeChat, QZone, Instagram, Tiktok etc. to constitute distractions for them in their study time.

Besides, ICT has also brought about a new culture of affluence in OAU, where exotic cars that belong to students or to some people who claim to have utilised ICT to make wealth from bitcoin or forex investment are seen around the campus, causing, as well, distractions for female students who chase after them, with the hope of getting some form of material gains. Not surprising, many students of OAU have now been speculated to be traumatized by unending fear of losing their investments in forex and bitcoin, which could eventually increase the tendency for suicide on campus in the near future. Speculative report has it that before Mr Adedeji Emmanuel committed suicide in April, 2021, he had told his friends of his suicidal impulse, as he was suspected to have experienced a heavy loss in a particular financial investment. Another OAU student was also speculated to have luckily survived an attempted suicide after he consumed a bottle of poisonous “Sniper” pesticide, due to a huge loss in forex investment. He was blessed to have survived the incident because of a quick hospital intervention that detoxified him. Lastly, why are these new generation students of OAU derailing from the values of “hard-work” to success and transiting to the values of “no-work” to success? This values transition question begs for answer. But, nevertheless, Great Ife students will forever acknowledge that there is only one Great Ife in the universe, while the greatness of Great Ife remains great as Africa’s most beautiful campus.

Habdul Hakeem Sule is a Freelance public and foreign policy analyst, and PhD student, Department of Public Administration, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, writes via shhakeem@yahoo.com.

NIGERIAN TRIBUNE