The death of a former student leader, Segun Okeowo, stirs fresh controversies over the state of student activism in the country.
When the news of the death of a former President of the National Union of Nigerian Students, Mr. Segun Okeowo, filtered in last Tuesday, many things ran through the inner recesses of many Nigerians. For some, especially those who had their university education in the 1970s, a true student unionist and human rights activist has departed the world.
For others, the country has lost yet another great nationalist, who fought for the emancipation of the Nigerian youths; while for another school of thought, a great teacher and family man has gone.
In fact, a Lagos lawyer and former student leader, Mr. Bamidele Aturu, describes Okeowo as a unionist who fought against the exploitation of Nigerian students and struggled for a sound educational system. To reflect his role in student activism, Aturu says there is the need to immortalise him.
He notes, “It is unfortunate that Okeowo fell ill in the country and people did not hear of it until his death. The sure way lovers of responsible life and the government can honour Okeowo is to name a university after him. That is the only way Nigerians can remember the legacies of the late unionist.”
The Civil Liberties Organisation, in a tribute, says Okeowo was a consummate activist and nationalist who played his role as a leader of Nigerian students creditably well.
The CLO adds, “He fought military authoritarianism to a standstill in defence of the students and the Nigerian people without disappointing and at the peril of his self comfort and threat to his life.”
With these accolades, it is not surprising that the present leadership of the National Association of Nigerian Students has declared a seven-day mourning in the nation’s tertiary institutions in honour of the departed hero.
But beyond these tributes, the passage of Okeowo, of the Ali-must-go-fame, has resurrected the place of student unionism and the need for a more vibrant activism. It has again brought to the fore the opportunity to comprehensively review the past and present role of student movements in the country. Indeed, his death has thrown up more and more questions about the struggle for freedom, equity, justice and democracy.
X-raying the development, Aturu notes that active student unionism and movement has since waned in the country. According to him, what is largely obtainable in the polity today are politicians parading themselves as representatives of the students.
He notes, “The student leaders of the past are different from what we have today. For instance, in the past, we traversed the length and breadth of this country in trains and trucks to organise seminars and meetings as well as to mobilise the students. But nowadays, the present leaders are busy parading the corridors of government houses looking for Student Union Government vehicles and other luxury cars to use.
The CLO Executive Director, Mr. Ibuchukwu Ezike, agrees with Aturu. The CLO boss says, “The present NANS leaders have absolutely lost focus and touch with the students and their genuine concerns or welfare. What we have now is a total departure from the usual tradition.”
He, however, links the decline in student activism to dearth of radical lecturers, absence of progressive and ideological campus movements that train activists, total decay in tertiary institutions that distract students and lack of connection between progressive organisations such as ASUU, labour movements, radical CSOs and chambers/lawyers that groomed and encouraged NANS leaders.
A university teacher, Prof. Demola Onifade, also shares the view that the present student leadership prefers to romance with politicians. According to him, the blame of not mentoring the students properly on the tenets of activism should not be on lecturers but on the students.
He notes, “This generation of students does not seek advice. They feel that they are mature and they do their own things their own way. It is not the responsibility of lecturers to be chasing them about. If they need our counsel, they should come to us.”
Also, the President of the Campaign for Democracy, Dr. Joe Okei-Odumakin, who says Okeowo’s death has closed a major chapter in the history of student unionism, notes that there is a “yawning gap” between the past and the present student leadership.
She argues, “As for what is known as the NANS today and their comparison with the student movement led by the late Okeowo, I will categorically say that there is a clear-cut difference owing to the lack of ideological understanding of the student movement by the present crop of leaders. Student unionism has become so compromised that we can hardly differentiate between the leadership of the student union of today and those of the political parties.”
But the NANS President, Mr. Yinka Gbadebo, disagrees with the view that the union has failed in its responsibility. The present leadership, according to him, is still committed to protecting the interest and the wishes of students, adding that what has changed is the mode of accomplishing some of these objectives.
He says, “The student struggle in the 70s’ is not the same with what obtains today. Then the agitation was against military rule, democratisation of education and the entrenchment of democracy. Now the military is not there because there is democracy in the land. Today, we have modern telecommunication equipment such as GSM and teleconferencing facilities that have reduced the way people travel in the country.
“In the past too, the language of protest was violence; but today we engage in constructive dialogue and this has been helping us. The protest of yesteryear was for the provision of chickens and tissues, but these are no longer realistic today.”
Arguing further, Gbadebo notes that NANS is gaining more respectability by the day. He insists, “The Constituent Assembly of 1978 had only one student, the National Conference of 2001 had no student representation, but in the forthcoming National Conference, NANS has six slots. This is unprecedented in the history of student movements in the country. So, if you consider our contributions to the emancipation of students, we have a nobler approach than our predecessors.”
A question that many observers may yet want the current leadership of the union to tackle is not just the approach, but the concerns it seeks to address. Besides, they want it to shape up in terms of ideology and integrity.
In this regard, a former NANS President and member Democratic Socialist Movement, Mr. Lanre Arogundade, agrees with Okei-Odumakin, saying student unionism nowadays is not only commercialised but also deprived of ideological leanings.
He says, “I am not impressed with happenings in the student movements in the country. Their activities have been so commercialised by any government, irrespective of the administration’s policies in education.
“The NANS of nowadays has, in the circumstance, become a platform for self aggrandisement, whose leaders do not mind to collaborate with any government in power, no matter the level of its anti-people educational policies. Today’s student leaders do not stand for any principles. Look at what happened during the last ASUU strike, the student body failed to provide any intellectual support.”
