OAU: A case for unbundling of a threatened heritage

FOR the very wrong reasons, my alma mater, the Obafemi Àwolowo University, Ile Ifè, has been in the news lately. A Vice Chancellor was appointed and hell and its fury swooped on the campus from Ilé Ifè township which said the new chief executive of the University ought to be their son. Yesterday (Monday), the Ifè Development Board, IDB, issued a statement defending the sad, tragic action and offering reasons for the tragedy.

IDB, in its Monday unfortunate statement placed the case of the invasion of OAU at the doorstep of the ongoing balkanization of OAU land by some Ife land grabbers. In the statement signed by Comrade Lawrence Awowoyin, IDB President, the group reiterated that “On behalf of the Ife community, we wish to state categorically here that the crux of the matter is a pending land dispute between the community and the university…”. From the above, it is obvious that the Ile Ife ritualists, who invaded OAU last week, merely used the issue of the selection of a new vice chancellor as a cover.

Other commentators have written to condemn the invasion. Here, I am offering a way forward. Beyond the condemnation of the very despicable act, I strongly hold the view that the protesting Ifè indigenes should also be reminded that though OAU is built on Ifè land, every community in Yoruba land contributed to the development of that institution. Ifè may be the host community, but OAU, as an entity, belongs to all towns and villages whose wealth built the university. Now that Ife is becoming hostile to the collective heritage of the entire Yoruba race, nay Nigeria, it will not be a bad idea if the university is broken down to a multi campus. This will give others whose wealth built the university the opportunity to show Ife how heritages are treasured. After all, “eni ba mo iyi wura laa ta fun” – gold is sold to who knows its value.

Why do I ask that OAU should be restructured into a multi-campus institution? The answer is provided by the apex Ife socio-cultural body, IDB, as quoted above. OAU only finds its geographical expression in Ilé Ifè. The university is a creation of all Yoruba states’ sweat. As it stands, the only solution is the restructuring of the university. The Federal Government should hand over the university to the Western Nigeria states that established it and let each state take a Faculty or College and then get less hostile communities to make land available for the development of the campuses. Doing so would have solved the problems for IDB and Ife indigenes. One, IDB will not have to struggle over the land of the university. It will have the entire university landscape to share among its members, sons and daughters. Two, Ifè indigenes will also have no issue about who becomes the vice chancellor of their share of the heritage after the restructuring. After all, a man names his dog any name he fancies.

I still cannot get over the agony of the pains inflicted on my psyche as a bonafide Yoruba, by the pseudo ritualists cum traditionalists, who invaded the campus of OAU in protest against the selection of  a new Vice Chancellor, Professor Adebayo Simeon Banire for the university. It was a show of shame. It was an embarrassment to the Yoruba’s claim to cosmopolitanism. It was an affront on everything that we stand for as a civilised group of well-meaning people. The ritualistic invasion of OAU over the issue of vice chancellorship was a dent on the cradle of  the Yoruba race.

The virus from Ife, hitting the over sixty years old OAU is far worse in magnitude and temerity than the COVID-19 pandemic. If not quickly checked, that citadel of learning will lose its universality. The agitation for an indigene of a university host community to become the vice chancellor is a huge embarrassment to the academic community, worldwide. Such a campaign should not be allowed to stand. It is one that, if allowed to fester, will erode completely, the very essence of the cradle town; for while science and technology can tame the COVID-19 virus, the new Ife virus is too pathological to be tamed. That is dangerous.

The situation is more worrisome given the fact that Ile Ife’s candidate, their very “son of the soil”, came a distant ninth  in the assessment of sixteen other professors for the post, while the Vice Chancellor designate, Professor Banire scored an aggregate of 84.6 percent. Yet, the aggrieved Ife indigenes carried pots of rituals and Ogboni attires to Africa’s most beautiful university campus; allegedly beat up staff and students and destroyed the university property. That is shameful enough.

It is gratifying to note that beyond the “son of the soil” agitation lays sheer greed and paucity of insightful thinking. History is a beast. Those ‘Alarinjo theater troupe’ that invaded OAU had other missions beyond making their own the vice chancellor. Behind that protest is uncommon avarice for unearned power and privileges. That virus of human greed was incubated in the very laboratories of some rapacious Ife indigenes, who are determined to eat their seeds alongside the harvest. They have forgotten that after each harvest, there is a planting season. Like hundreds of thousands of other graduates of Great Ife, I have an emotional attachment to that school. Following closely to the issue of vice chancellorship is the issue of land. The protesters merely used the vice chancellorship matter to veil their true intents. ID corroborated this.

For record purposes OAU, at inception in 1961, was allotted Eleven Thousand, Nine Hundred and Sixty One (11,961) Hectares of land by the reigning Ooni of Ife, Oba Adesoji Aderemi, who also doubled as the Governor of Western Region. By December 2020, IDB had reduced that land mass to 13,852 Acres. By implication, OAU has just half of its present land mass in IDB’s reckoning as it stands to lose 6.356 Hectares, more than half of its land mass, to Ile Ife indigenes! This position is what IBD reiterated in its Monday press statement. At least,  the Ife group was sincere enough to admit that underneath the OAU vice chancellorship is “the crux of the matter is a pending land dispute between the community and the university”. That in itself is a huge embarrassment!

It took Ile Ife a long 53 years of the existence of OAU to realise that the university is occupying more than what was allocated to it! And 61 years after the establishment of the institution, the “son of the soil” agitation surfaced. What a coincidence! It is baffling to note that the protesters would  need non-indigenes  to tell them that once you take away OAU from Ife, the community reverts straight to its pre-historic stage. I passed through the town recently on a trip to another town within the axis and realised that other than the regal presence of the university and  its pristine grace, nothing has changed in that ancient town since I left school some decades ago! The only pride of the Ife community today is that same OAU. Little wonder that 55 years after the permanent structures were built on Ife land, the community has not been able to add another landmark project or institution to the ancient town. The Oduduwa University that appears to be close by is on Ipetumodu land. That is why the abbreviation for the university is OUI!

This is the time, I think, IDB should be in its best element to educate its members and other indigenes of Ife that universities’ vice chancellors are not appointed through Ifa divination. The body has the responsibility, rather than fighting to partition OAU land, to tell Ife sons and daughters that nobody becomes a vice chancellor by carrying pots of rituals. As a people from the very source of the Yoruba culture and tradition, the Ife protesters ought to have known that; ki ebo to fin, ki eru to da ooto ni lati tele” – for the gods to accept one’s sacrifice and offering, the true condition for propitiation must be fulfilled. The protesters should be told in clear terms that a tick that vows to kill the dog-its host; dies too once the dog dies.

I don’t have an issue with an indigene of Ile-Ife becoming the Vice Chancellor of the university. However, such a person must be found worthy in character and in learning. He or she must be seen to have meritoriously earned the honour of being the vice chancellor of  such a university with a long history of excellence. Asking a ninth position to be a vice chancellor ahead of those who performed better than him is not only wrong, but equally mischievous. No amount of pots of rituals or ‘akasu eko (mounds of pap) can change that. In any case, it is not for fun that our elders say “oogun ti yio je, kekere ni mo” – a charm that is potent is usually small. Wearing funny white garments and dancing round an object in the name of ritual to enthrone an indigene as a vice chancellor of a university in the year 2022 is amateurish.

I feel personally scandalised that such displays could happen at our own Great Ife and there were no repercussions. And I feel more horrified that it took almost three days of protests and destruction of OAU property before the owners of Ife spoke out on the matter. In a situation like this, I expected the Ile Ife Palace to rise to the occasion, almost immediately. The long silence from Enuowa before the protesters were cautioned grieves me to no end.

This is why I sincerely think that His Imperial Majesty, the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, Ojaja II, should go beyond appealing to the protesters, but he must sanction them.  Ojaja, fidi pote mole (he who drops and quenches conspiracy with his buttocks), Gbingbinnikin bi ate ileke” (the one that is heavy like a huge  tray of coral beads)  must stop this perfidy!