OAU: STUDENTS COMMEMORATE JULY 10, 1999 MURDER OF OAU 5

By - DSM

OAU: STUDENTS COMMEMORATE JULY 10, 1999 MURDER OF OAU 5

Students Must Organise and Fight Against Cultism and Anti-Student Policies of the University Management

The Students’ Union of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) Ile-Ife organized a public symposium to commemorate the gruesome murder of five students of the university on July 10, 1999. The symposium was attended by several students and had past union leaders as speakers and panelists. The Education Rights Campaign (ERC) joined students to commemorate this day, we circulated leaflet at the event which was well received by the students.

The students killed in the bloody cult attack included a 21-year-old 400-Level law student and the then Secretary-General of the Students’ Union, George ‘Yemi Iwilade, popularly known to as Afrika. Others were Eviano Ekelemu, 400-Level Medicine; Yemi Ajiteru, an extra year student; Babatunde Oke, 100-Level Philosophy; and Efe Ekede a student of Psychology. The gunmen who were members of the Black Axe cult group, also known as Aye, came in the early hours of July 10, 1999, to unleash terror on the university community.

The July 10 cult attack on the OAU campus was aimed at radical students’ unionism; it was not a surprise that the targets of the attack were radical union leaders. For example, the president of the students’ union then, Lanre Legacy, only escaped narrowly because he had heard the sound of gunshots before the cultists got to his room.

At that time, the Great Ife Students’ Union had launched a series of serious struggles over obnoxious school fees hike, independent student unionism, reinstatement of victimised student activists and other anti-student policies of the University management led by Prof. Wale Omole, as well as successful mass resistance against campus cultism.

As a response to the attack, a resounding NO was made against cultism, and OAU pronounced zero tolerance for CULTISM. Some of the perpetrators of the killing were arrested by an enraged studentry, with some arrested as far as Edo State, Ibadan and Lagos State, as a mass of students mobilised to take their destinies into their own hands without waiting for the police or government to act. In addition, the Prof. Wale Omole authorities, which allegedly sponsored the cult attacks, were swept out of the campus by a tidal wave of the movement.

Now, 27 years later, the current generation of students must recognise that they owe a lot to the sacrifices of the past generation, including those like Afrika and 4 others who lost their lives in the struggle to defend students’ interests. The relative level of safety obtainable on campus after July 10, 1999, was a product of the collective effort of students in ensuring that cult-like activities do not prevail again on campus.

STUDENTS MUST FIGHT AGAINST ANTI-STUDENT POLICIES OF THE UNIVERSITY MANAGEMENT AND BUILD A VIBRANT STUDENTS’ UNION

Today, OAU students are faced with a deteriorating welfare condition coupled with the payment of outrageous fees for various services. The increment in fees, which had been forced on students, has not resulted in any significant improvement in the welfare conditions of students. This is even though the excuse given for these increments was the need to improve the welfare condition of students. We urge students to be actively involved in the campaign to demand improved welfare conditions. The ERC over the years has been actively advocating for an improvement in the welfare conditions of students in addition to adequate funding of public education. We therefore urge students to take the decisive step to join us and lend a voice to this campaign.

Recently, the Prof Bamire-led administration, in connivance with the wife of President Mrs Remi Tinubu implemented a new transportation policy which has resulted in a crisis. The CNG tricycles and buses donated are grossly inadequate to cater for thousands of students and other workers and traders commuting from the town to the campus. We commend students for kicking against this ill-thought and insensitive policy.

We condemn the punitive response of the Bamire-led administration for shutting down the campus without meeting the demands of students. We urge students not to give up on their agitation against the crisis-ridden transportation system of Bamire and other attacks on the living and learning conditions on the campus. It should be noted that shutting the school down over a peaceful protest is the tactics of the university management to force anti-student policies down the throat of students. Afrika, and many other radical leaders of the union fought vehemently against these tactics and ensured the demands of students were met. Today, students must learn from Afrika and other past union leaders.