Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has lambasted Ile- Ife indigenes who protested against the appointment of non-Ife as Vice Chancellor of Obafemi Awolowo University, describing their action as crazy.
Soyinka, a former lecturer at OAU, spoke at a lecture titled, ‘The Politics of Black Intellection and Creativity, at the University of Pennsylvania, the United States’, which was the first of the newly-inaugurated Distinguished Lecture series in African Studies.
Soyinka faulted the protesters, saying “an Ife person wrote to me and said, look at these people disgracing us. I told him to go there and disgrace them. You are an Ife person. You should be in the front line.
“The Ife people should say those people don’t belong to us, we don’t know where they came from. And they should be dealt with ruthlessly. Why should there be an Ife VC anywhere? I just don’t understand what they put in the water these days. It is crazy.”
Since the announcement of Professor Adebayo Bamire as OAU VC, some Ife indigenes have been protesting against him, and demanding that an Ife indigene should have been appointed.
The protests by the Ife indigenes started last Thursday, March 17, 2022, shortly after the University Governing Council, led by its Chairman, Owelle Oscar Udoji, announced a professor of Agricultural Economics, Bamire, as the 12th substantive VC.
The protesters, who initially blocked the main gate of the university on the first day and threatened staff and students to stay away from campus, allegedly became violent the second day as they beat up workers, particularly the staff of the Security Unit, and vandalised their office at the Main Gate.
Some of the security workers were reportedly taken to the university’s Health Centre for treatment.
On Monday, March 21, 2022, the protest took another dimension as the protesting indigenes blocked the two major gates as early as 6: 00 am, entering the campus with charms, and other fetish items.
Videos that surfaced online showed the protesters assembled at the motion ground of the University Secretariat, dressed in all-white spiritual traditional attire, chanting incantations and performing rituals.
The Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi, cautioned the protesting indigenes and residents of the town to be lawful, saying protests were legitimate rights and a way to pass messages of dissatisfaction across to relevant authorities.
The spokesperson of the university, Abiodun Olarewaju, explianed how the new VC emerged on Monday. He said, “At the end of the interaction, the sealed envelopes were opened one after the other and announced to all the members. The score sheets were thereafter passed around for sighting. Then, the scores of the candidates were collated with Microsoft Excel and ranked from the highest to the lowest.
“The candidate with the highest score was eventually announced as the Vice-Chancellor by the Governing Council.
“For the avoidance of doubt, no member of the Board had foreknowledge of each candidate’s score before the final collation at the end of the interaction.
“The University hereby affirms that due processes were followed and merit was the basis for the appointment of the new Vice-Chancellor.”
