Prof Ajibade and the Paradox of Education in Nigeria -By Hussein Adegoke

The occurrence of last Wednesday, the 17th of November 2021, will remain evergreen in the life of a Nigerian University Professor and indeed, in the lives of all conscious Nigerian academics. That a perceived highly ranked man of letters in a university could not tolerate the ideology brandished by another is at best a condescending act and at worst, a thing of shame on all Nigerian Letters.

The denigrating assault of a young innocent girl by a university professor that resulted into a final appeasement by the way of forceful compromise on the part of the victim to bridge truce between the dueling parties is almost the worst crime anyone has committed on the face of the earth. It would never have mattered if Professor had not, in fact, removed that veil—a rhetoric emblem of faith and an insignia of the highest nobility—but that he orchestrated the removal and had eventually become filled by the gratification of his intention is a sufficient reason to hold him culpable for any injury or harm suffered in the harassment. The harms are two-fold and rhapsodic in nature. The first harm lies in the violation of moral competence and credulity. For the rest of the victim’s life, I would only imagine how it is lived (with no proper counselling and re-orientation).

Prof Lawal Ajibade took a knife and serrated nobility in broad daylight. We should ask of how much blow he has dealt immorality on his campus before coming to attack uprightness. In this current world we live where few are sane, would it ever make sense to lay a finger upon a fraction of us who are not wayward? Prof would have read about philosophers in many books who had contrasting ideologies but would yet put up a good life amongst each other based on solid worth and intellectual fecundity, but would he have taken a cue? He found it unpleasant to accommodate his student for tutelage and would yet dabble into the affairs he has no business with. The succinct analogy here is a washerman employed for home service, finding Junior deficient in mathematics and needful of tutorship. “Èlèbọ́ la wá rà, ọmọ ẹran ṣe dé’gbá”, so goes a succinct Yoruba adage for such befuddling paradoxes.

Prof Ajibade who is the Head of Nursing, LAUTECH has battered his student’s ego, preyed on her self-righteous conscience and murdered her soul amidst his own peer group and the student’s subjects. The incident was a reflection on the academic life in Nigeria where a lecturer assumes a role beyond his/er official powers. They make themselves the supremos in tertiary schools and impose themselves on the mundane affairs of their students. They would threaten you with the loss of grades and marks (or as in Ajibade’s case, the re-run of a semester/complete session) as if all these would become tickets to heavenly salvation.

I have deliberately addressed this subject from an intellectual standpoint as it is seemingly beyond religiosity. It is a question about tolerance and the need for mutual cooperation on promoting discipline rather than discounting it in our society. In this age of increased killings, rampages, kidnappings, body mutilations, frauds, voodoos, and cybercrimes, why should have been the role of morality other than making it a thing of appraisal? Why should it, as instead, be let loose in a world full of clowns and scoundrels? We have had severe reports of sexual crimes and gender abuse (the case of a leaked video of a popular musician on sex romp and of a 44-year old mother outside Nigeria marrying her 26-year old daughter). What has Professor Ajibade and his ilks said or done so far to curb the surge of a third gender (fourth, fifth and more)? Yet, they are stifling sanity and hellbent on removing the remaining discipline left in the Nigerian higher institutions. Prof had better reasoned carefully and tread with caution.

PS: As of the time of concluding this article, Prof was said to have apologized and became remorseful over his actions following his suspension from his lofty position. This article has yet been published to seek a redress within the Nigerian system of education and in our society at large.