Salaudeen of Unilorin, Students’ Brutality and the Risk of Teaching in Nigerian Universities

Universities are citadels of knowledge which majorly focuses on imparting knowledge and building character. However, recent developments lead one to the conclusion that many students (if not most) do not know what university is and the place of teachers therein.

It is obvious that higher institutions in Nigeria are facing numerous challenges. The challenges of infrastructure, funding, and miserable working conditions of teachers. These are reasons why universities in Nigeria—and other learning institutions—are always on strike. ASUU is warming up again for its regular—though justifiable—annual ritual. Not observing it seems to be a taboo.

Be that as it may, the focus of this column is not on the challenges that often set ASUU and allied unions against government. Its focus is on the challenges faced by lecturers in discharging their hallowed primary responsibilities of imparting knowledge and building character. This puts a big question mark on the integrity of certificates issued by our higher institutions in Nigeria. Are these certificates actually issued based on learning and character? Hmm is the answer. Anyway, some universities do not joke with both. Kudos to them.

Assaults on lecturers in our higher institutions are nothing new. They do not make the headlines anymore. But the recent one on Mrs. Rahmat Zakariyau is indeed a news which came to many of us as a shock. It is high time we nipped this ugly trend in the bud. The time is now to join hands together and stop this rubbish.

Students have devised different means of persuading their teachers. Their first modus operandi is to bribe in cash or in kind. And when a female student chooses to bribe in ‘kind’, you know what that means. Some of them unnecessarily run errands and literarily enslave themselves to their lecturers for marks. Some employ sycophancy—just for marks—and some lecturers fall in.

Some students have become professionals in pimpship as they pimp for call girls and street-workers on behalf of their lecturers in order not to fail their courses. Note that these call girls are not necessarily outsiders. They could be students who, in addition to studentship, have taken prostitution as a trade.

Some who are bold and stupid enough try to be ‘friends’ to their lecturers by striking a business deal with them. If they are successful in doing that, they reverse the whole lecturer-student relationship and turn their lecturers to errand boys. They will tell their lecturers the grades they wish to get in their courses and the lecturers could not do otherwise. This is arrant nonsense and the height of irresponsibility. Lecturers who lower themselves to be trampled upon and remote-controlled by students are doomed. Not only that, they are disgrace to the hallowed profession which teaching is—the profession of the prophets.

I am not referring those ‘prophets’ that litter our houses of worship nowadays. By prophets, I mean those extraordinary beings like Prophet Muhammad, Prophet Ibrahim/Abraham, Prophet Musa/Moses, Prophet Isa/Jesus, and their likes (peace upon them). But some buffoons—so-called lecturers—turn themselves to toys in the hands of some not-willing-to-learn students. They desecrate teaching profession. The presence of these kinds of characters (fake academics) in the ivory towers must have, perhaps, given Salaudeen Waliu Aanuoluwa of the Department of Microbiology (University of Ilorin) the audacity to brutalise his own teacher.

Nevertheless, kudos to Mrs Rahmat Zakariyau who stood her ground and remain uncompromising. Kudos again to all lecturers/teachers who are determined to protect the image of this hallowed profession—in Nigeria and elsewhere. Teaching job is not a useless job. Hence, lecturers are not useless people; they MUST be respected.

I am not saying all lecturers are responsible, you may wish to subtract the corrupt ones which, of course, are found everywhere. At any rate, Mrs Rahmat belongs to the category of those who deserve respect.

As I set to write this column, one of my revered teachers, Sheikh Shuaib Dagbo, told me that Mrs Rahmat is a daughter of the renowned Arabist, Prof. Hamzat Ishola Abdul Raheem. I never knew—I don’t have the faintest idea. That is why it is imperative for Muslim women to bear their fathers’ names (not husbands’) even after marriage.

What was the offence of Mrs. Rahmat? She refused to yield to the request of Salaudeen who begged her for a waiver of the mandatory Students Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES). He claimed to have met Mrs. Rahmat numerous times but the responses are always negative. He failed to realise that Mrs. Rahmat knows that God watches her and what she does. That is consciousness of Allah. He did not also understand that she will not flout the University rules and regulations. That is being responsible.

Let’s pause to ask; must Salaudeen graduate with his fellows? Can’t he come back next year to fulfil one of the requirements for graduation? And if he cannot fulfil the requirements must he graduate? Is it a must to have a degree to make it in life? These are some of the questions. But Salaudeen opted for the ugly action—he beat his lecturer, terribly, to coma. Now he has to face the ugly consequence.

He wrongly thought he will be inflicting pain on his lecturer, but in reality he has only drawn the attention of the world to the person of Mrs. Rahmat. Prior to this incident, most of us don’t know her; but now we know what she embodies. She embodies righteousness. She doesn’t tolerate nonsense, she is principled, incorruptible, uncompromising and God fearing. Mrs. Rahmah should not allow this mishap to demoralize her; it should rather strengthen her.

This is the risk of teaching in Nigerian universities. While the government continues to whip us by denying us what is due to us, students make every attempt to corrupt us. When they could not achieve their aim to pass and graduate by hook or by crook, they resort to spiritual and physical attacks. Some even go to the extent of reaching out to some OGAS at the top to deal with uncompromising lecturers. Where do we go from here?

But the Vice Chancellor of the University of Ilorin, along with the management, treads the path of honour. He did the needful. He did not disappoint some of us. He affirms our belief that there are still responsible administrators in our universities. He gives no room to sentiments. He did not consider Salaudeen a Yoruba and a Muslim like himself. He did away with all these useless, perverted, anti-progress, and primordial sentiments. He expelled him immediately the news broke out. And I reliably gathered that he personally paid visit to the family of Mrs. Rahmat.

It is upsetting to hear some mentally retarded Muslims saying they should have resolved the issue since the student and the lecturer in question are all Muslims. What a backward thinking! Is there any other way of resolving this kind of issue than to show the student the exit?

Their horrible conclusion that expelling Salaudeen is a minus to the number of Muslim graduates makes me speechless. I don’t know how to relate with this kind of people and I am not responsible for their inability to think like humans. But let it be clear to them that the decision taken by the Vice Chancellor is a plus (not a Minus) to Islam.

Islam doesn’t tolerate laziness, unreasonable desperation, and disrespect for scholars. Ibn Asakir (RA) once said: “the flesh of scholars is poison. And Allah’s established way of tearing down the screen of those who attack the scholars is well-known. This is because attacking them for an affair that they are innocent of is a mighty thing. And to speak of their honour with falsehood and fabrications is an evil and obnoxious pasture to graze upon”. May Allah continue to uplift our righteous teachers.

Abdulkadir Salaudeen

salahuddeenabdulkadir@gmail.com

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