As Flies to Wanton Boys Are We to the Gods; They Kill Us for Their Sport

Just yesterday, the king cut off my head. I expected it anyway. It’s his world-class method for destroying my clan whenever he thinks our drums are too loud. For years, we have wondered why he takes such drastic measures; is it because the drums are too noisy, because he dislikes our style of music or because he doesn’t like the content of our music? It must be the latter, I suppose. For generations, my clan has only known one style: songs against the king’s excessive love for cashew. 

The king demands cashews from every clan every 10 months. We’ve farmed our lands dry to produce cashew, but the king still wants more. He doesn’t care whether we sell off our huts to produce cashew. He even offers us cashews from the royal farmlands so that we can meet the yearly cashew donation, but under one condition—that we pay him back once my clan gets richer. Although that makes sense to nobody but the king, the other clans have accepted the proposal. Do not get me wrong. My clan is not against yearly offerings to the king. We just think that it is outrageous for him to ask for 500 bags of cashews. How is that possible when there are many clans with just a plot of land for farming? Besides, that is the reason why we decided to work for him instead of the more demanding kings. Last year, we even heard that the king loves to rub cashew nuts between his palms for leisure. Just for leisure? Our precious cashew nuts!

Let’s go back to what happened yesterday. What killed me wasn’t the king’s sword. It was my brother who killed me. As I opened my eyes after saying my last prayer, I saw my brother shaking hands and giggling with the king. My own brother! “It’s a nice way of negotiating”, he said. I remember when he begged my clan to be our representative to the king. He swore with his life that he would stand for us. He told us that the times were different. Epoch-making times, he called it. I looked back at my clan, too. My clan refused to look at me. They were not saying anything, but I heard someone whisper things like, “He is the sacrificial lamb. We have our farmlands to take care of. We are looking forward to pleasing the king next year.” They said I should not have beaten my drum too hard. What happened to speaking out against the king? What happened to persevering till we win? I gave my life for them. What have they given for me?

Between May 13, 2024 and July 14, 2025, the UI governing body ensured the reverberation of an ignored law. Prior to this period, students of the first and the best university in Nigeria were freely committing a crime. We can’t blame them anyway; they were just unaware of it. However, ignorance is not an excuse. How could they not know that being poor is a crime?! That is totally wrong, especially in the first and the best university in Nigeria, a model establishment to other schools and the foremost desire of every student. 

On May 13, 2024, Aduwo Ayodele, Olamide Gbadegesin and Nice Linus protested against the astronomical increment in school fees. All they did was hold placards without derogatory remarks. Many would agree that what happened was a simple appeal to reduce school fees. However, things are not that simple at the first and the best. Holding a placard is burglary, and calling out authorities is murder. Whoever is found guilty of such is a threat to the student community and must be quarantined until they are free from the blemishes of their desires to sin. Students of UI and the general public must know that if you decide to hold up a placard in UI, you will earn the privilege of being closely watched by security outfits till you leave school. 

Since Aduwo and his cohorts dared to protest against the fee hike, they have faced peculiar situations that the average UI student is likely not to face. What a privilege it is to have been assaulted by security officials, to have faced the Nigerian Army, the highly revered Student Disciplinary Committee (SDC) and to be closely monitored by the Department of State Services (DSS). After the protest, they all faced a fact-finding hearing on July 2, 2024. Nothing happened for a year until Aduwo and Gbadegesin were called to face an investigative hearing on June 30, 2025. Two weeks later, Aduwo and Gbadegesin faced the Central SDC, where they were suspended for four semesters. These student activists have now been made to prolong their studies for 2 extra sessions for raising placards, alias, “gross misconduct”. 

It’s NOT New. It’s Classic

On December 1, 2006, an article published by the Democratic Socialist Movement read, “The authorities of the University of Ibadan, which are notorious for the victimisation of student activists who lead students to challenge their highhandedness and demand improvement in welfare, have expelled another student activist.” Notorious? In 2006? This simply adduces that student victimisation is not alien to the UI climate. In 2006, the campus experienced water scarcity and power outage for almost a week, but the school management refused to attend to it. Anthony Oni led a peaceful protest against this, and what he got in return was a four-semester break from school.  

There are many other ignoble cases of union oppression in UI. An article records that UI’s aversion to an independent union motivated legal and administrative sanctions against the SU executives in 2001. Eventually, the school filed a court case to render the SU elections illegal, but not being patient enough to await the judgment, the school suspended all students who contested in the elections and those who served in the electoral commission, 43 students in total, including Akeem Lawal, Alayande Stephen, Ola Adeosun, Ayodeji Ali, Wale Eleto, Oluajo Babatunde and Afolabi Oloko. Resistance continued, and allegedly, Prof. Ayodele Falase, the VC at the time, employed cultists to attack the union leaders and take over the Student Union Building. Eventually, the SU and other student-centred organisations like the Democratic Socialist Movement were proscribed. Today, the Ayodele Falase Post-Graduate Hall, College of Medicine, UI, bears this man’s name, renowned as a distinguished COMUI legend. We leaf through his Medicine textbooks till today. History does not remember the fallen; history does not remember the losers. Ire o.

In September 2003 and March 2010, students of the university protested against the university authorities, decrying the epileptic power supply, deteriorating infrastructure and lack of regular power supply. There was another protest in October 2008 against fee hike and the suppression of independent unionism.

Later in 2016, protests rocked UI after the suspension of Michael Tunji-Ekpeti, a fifth-year Petroleum Engineering student, for leading a protest against the school in November 2015. Michael, joined by other students from Independence Hall, protested against the epileptic power supply and water scarcity on campus. Although he denied leading the protest, stating that he was simply acting in solidarity with his colleagues, he was still rusticated for one semester for the sin of “breaking the matriculation oath”. What followed was an indefinite closure of the school, a method of oppressing unionism that has now become familiar in UI.

In 2018, Kunle Adebajo, one of the most brilliant journalists on campus, criticised the management’s practice of repainting hostels under the guise of renovation in a press article. Adebajo was also accused of ‘gross misconduct’, like Aduwo and Gbadegesin. After the initial disciplinary action, his case was delayed for up to a year before he was eventually suspended for 2 semesters. Here is the ‘rude and insubordinate’ article in question.

The turning point came in 2019 when Ojo Aderemi, the Students’ Union President, was suspended alongside other executives for leading the “No ID card, No Exam” protest. This was just 22 days after he took office in 2017. The protest was sparked by the school’s refusal to address pressing student issues, including the delayed issuance of ID cards. Immediately after the protest, the Students’ Union was proscribed, and its executives were summoned by the school administration. Sadly, what could have been a revolutionary movement became an avenue for punishment as he was suspended on the grounds of ‘unruly behaviour’. Although several civic institutions called for his reinstatement, the school ignored them. Aderemi would later challenge the 4 semesters he “bagged” in court, after all other appeals failed, but when he won the case in 2023, he had served the suspension and concluded his studies in the 2021/2022 session. Notably, Ojo was a pressman before he went into student politics, and he was also a student of the Department of History, just like Aduwo. 

Another student, a member of the Concerned Students Against Tuition Fee (CSATF), in some ways, a modern counterpart of the DSM, has received an SDC summons for condemning the excessive fining of students by the Ransome Kuti Hall management during the three-week break that followed the August fee hike protest last year. He will likely suffer an ignominable fate as well. One semester? Two? That doesn’t matter to either the management or the students at this point; nobody gives a damn.

Sadly, students are not the only ones who have suffered this. Dr Doyin Adebowale, popularly known as High Priest, of the Department of Classics, has gone against the UI government four times. In 2004, he challenged the anti-student, anti-worker character of this school. This particular lawsuit was still on when Anthony Oni was served a four-semester suspension. In 2021, he won his fourth lawsuit against UI after being wrongly dismissed for calling out UI’s tolerance for academic plagiarism and worsening infrastructural facilities. 

Victimisation in UI is a culture. The council does not care! Whenever students rise to call out alarming deterioration, the response is almost always an invitation to the hall of fame for scapegoating. When Aderemi was suspended, a professor who preferred to remain anonymous mentioned that the VC at the time was still very angry, although the judgment was made 2 years after the incident. Why is activism met with so much distaste? Why must students not speak up? 

Students United in Indifference

Aduwo and his cohorts decided to challenge the school’s decision by protesting on Tuesday, 15th July, 2025. At about 8:25 pm, Aduwo’s voice was heard on a megaphone, singing songs of aluta. He had with him Mide Gbadegesin, who also suffered the same fate. There were a few people with them as they went from block to block at Independence Hall, trying to get students to join them. However, what they met was unexpected indifference and jabs from the same students they fought for. How can students be so nonchalant about their own brother? Just last year, they protested together. They fought together. They experienced true unionism together. What suddenly happened? Students were not interested in the protest. “You dey go nau. Una no get exam?” 

After they went to all the blocks, there was silence for a while. Nothing was heard. We thought they were done. All of a sudden, we heard stronger shouts this time. It looked as if aluta was about to resurrect. Tens of students had joined the protest; some from Indy and others from Zik. Next, we heard Aduwo’s voice on the newly commissioned Public Address System. He announced that the protest was about to go into full swing and that students should join him and his fellows in the struggle. And then, there was movement. We saw the Administrator General of Independence Hall, Peculiar Adedeji and some other unidentified persons. They had a prolonged meeting with the Aduwo, Gbadegesin and some other people on the Indy Maracana. Many people who had come to join the protest became impatient as there was no clear reason as to why the protest had not started. Many eventually left.

Minutes later, Aduwo and Gbadegesin came to address the protesters. Although he didn’t explicitly state it, he called off the protest and encouraged the students present not to let go of the aluta spirit. He condemned the management’s oppression of neo-liberal struggles, and also hinted that the protest was called off because of the fear, ignorance and arrogance of the student leaders in question. The Hall Chairman of Zik Hall, Sotomi Daniel, wanted Indy to declare the protest first, while the Administrator General of Indy Hall was not ready to announce or join the protest. According to our sources, the hall leaders, together with the SU and the “stakeholders”, were trying to involve influential alumni in the case to try and get the suspension reduced. Diplomacy against autocracy? We ought to know better.

Is this still a Students’ Union?

Reportedly, the SU executives were trying to get Aduwo to admit to the “gross misconduct” at the SDC hearing. In their opinion, admitting to the charges and pleading for a pardon would have yielded a favourable outcome. How does it make sense to admit to a crime you did not commit? Admission of guilt will have given the UI management a justification for any punishment they decided to mete out. “At least, the students also admitted to their wrong. We are not the ones oppressing anybody here.” It has been seven days since the suspension was pronounced, and yet we have not heard anything from the Students’ Union. How shameful is it that the Students’ Union Government of the Federal University, Oye Ekiti (FUOYE) put out a release in solidarity with UI3 before the so-called student leaders in UI? 

Also, the Stakeholders of the Nnamdi Azikwe Hall sent out a call for solidarity, fairness and justice and copied the Students’ Union Executives, the Students’ Union Representative Council, the Council of Faculty Presidents and the Council of Hall Chairpersons, before the Stakeholders of the Independence Hall, where Aduwo is from. Independence Hall is still yet to issue a public release on this matter, all of seven days later. These are the same people who will promote claims of brotherhood at any chance they get. Now that their own brother is facing injustice, what have they done to show brotherhood? Or do Halls of Residence only exist to exert power when it’s time for elections, then keep mute all year round? Is that the sort of Unionism that is obtainable in the Premier University? A movement of struggle was ongoing, yet the speaker of the Students’ Representatives Council, Mr Shoge Quadri, was nowhere to be found. This begs the question: Are they actually representing students?

A day after the suspension, the SU had not said a word about this matter. The President of the Students’ Union, Covenant Odedele, only posted this on his WhatsApp status:

Ah, the epitome of intellectual unionism: leaving followers in the dark is an art form. No need for transparency, right? We’re lucky if we get interpretive dance instead of updates.

To all Uites, a message: our SU President seems more interested in stunts than actual leadership. With all due respect, Mr. President, this isn’t the intellectual union we were promised. Nobody’s here for your secret sign language—speak up! While we get that some details are sensitive, showing zero care or solidarity isn’t leadership—it’s simply cryptic. Can’t expect followers to read minds, can we?

We saw him do the same thing with the “6+14” retort when he was called out about the approaching school fee deadline. Initially, the school planned to close the payment portal on June 6, but unknown to students, NELFUND confirmed the list of beneficiaries late. As a result, registration of students started late, and the deadline had to be extended. The intellectual union saw it as an opportunity to claim credit for work they played no part in. They can indeed take credit for the subsequent 8¼ days deadline extension, but claiming the initial 2 weeks was absolutely unnecessary!

Even worse is the recent activity of the social media accounts of the UI’SU. For tenures, the WhatsApp page has merely been for ads and memes. To get quick information about happenings in the school, you have to depend on social media influencers like Omoadesope. How ideal is that? The X account is no better. By all reasoning, it is unheard of that the handler of the social media account of the UI’SU is not concerned with professionalism of any sort. This is what student leadership has been reduced to. Occasionally, we see episodes of rude banter with students from other schools. How laughable was it that the handler deemed it fit to use the newly commissioned Philip O. Ozuah block at UCH to brag about the quality of hostels at the University of Ibadan? Excuse you?! Are we not all aware of the quality of accommodation that we get here? We have a management that sees nothing wrong with allocating kitchenettes to students in male halls of residence, even after they paid the same ₦60,000 their mates in rooms paid. Even the regular rooms are nothing to write home about, four grown men sharing a hamlet the size of a few cubic feet, demarcating this miserable abode with curtains for some semblance of privacy. It is abominable! Students who are not wealthy enough have to settle for the substandard cubicles we call rooms. Again, the only crime these students have committed is being poor.

Before the commencement of the exams, the UI’SU hosted an X space on the topic, “How ‘Unserious’ Students Also Pass Exams”, adding the byline, “Olodo sef dey pass exams”. It is incredibly amusing that an idea like that was approved and eventually implemented. Well, it is an intellectual union. Ideas like that fly. This is the same union that organised a walk against examination malpractice at the beginning of the session. All is not well!

Since the suspension, there has been no sign of solidarity on the internet whatsoever. Instead, the handler engaged in a hearty discussion about ‘tech road boys’. What a mess we are in! Two students were unjustly suspended, but all the SU PRO could think about was joking about tech road boys, a connotation for an even more nuanced conversation on sexual exploitation on this campus! This is why we must thoroughly vet those we put in power. We have to stop voting for people based on popularity, favouritism or affiliation. Our union soils the efforts of past heroes. We hold candle nights and gyration sessions for Kunle Adepeju, the first student martyr, yet we fail to honour his memory in our actions. What a shame!

Conclusion

Neoliberal persecution continues to gain ground in the University of Ibadan. Amidst our anger, we must admit that the SU can only do so much. They are also students, and they have a lot to lose. Many of the executives are in the final year of their education, and they are scared of the management, justifiably so, too. However, what must be condemned is the obvious and unconcealed lack of concern exhibited by the SU. We all know what happens to students who dare to protest. It’s not new. Regardless, the SU is still to seek the interest of students first. If you know that you cannot stand with those you claim to represent, do not contest for the position. The popularity can only last for so long. There are many other ways you can improve your CV. Stop jeopardising the lives of students for the sake of your irresponsibility.

Unionism is not just rotting slowly; it is dead and buried. And as it stands, perhaps the Student Union must be proscribed once and for all, so it is finally clear to us that we have no say in the affairs of this university as things are. Aduwo and Gbadegesin have joined the ranks of victimised activists, and as it stands, Nice Linus is the next on the list. However, this is not death to aluta. Aluta may be weak and ailing, but it shall surely rise again. This oppression will not last forever, as one day, students will realise that they are the only ones who can save themselves and take back this mandate from autocrats. Perhaps, at that point, we too will vote for the Vice-Chancellor, and build an administration that’s truly answerable to the students. Until then, lick your wounds and wipe your tears, dear UItes. You must pass your exams to leave this purgatory after all.