Every alumnus of the University must be concerned that his or her alma mater is now a war zone for religious and ethnic politics, and that both faculty and staff are embroiled in a do-or-die fight over the position of Vice Chancellor. Crescent war between Christians and Muslims on the campus but what is now going on at the University is truly a new low. There may have been issues with the Vice Chancellorship of the University in the past (Kenneth Dike, Tekena Tamuno). It is particularly a crying shame that the University of Ibadan since November 2020 has not been able to appoint a substantive Vice Chancellor, after the expiration of the tenure of the former Vice Chancellor, Professor Idowu Olayinka. And to think that there are actually persons within that system not knowing the difference between the town and the gown, or they probably do, but they really do not care that the rot in town has so infiltrated the university it may no longer matter anyway. Which is why it is so sad, and this is the point of this piece, that the University of Ibadan, once the breeding place of “national diamonds” has now become a melting pot of the Nigerian factor. This is the background to the current situation at the University of Ibadan, a metaphor for the overall Nigerian condition. But when things go wrong in Nigeria, they simply travel from bad to worse. When some countries or institutions lose it, and the elite go astray, they manage to retain some value, a residual zone of redemption. Prayer rooms and night vigils became bigger attractions on campus. But that did not stop some of the brightest Professors in the University joining the Pentecostal bandwagon too. Once, a zoo keeper who had been converted into a growing wave of Christian Pentecostalism, went into the zoo and proclaimed himself “Daniel in the Lion’s Den”. It turned out that the animals in the zoo, a great attraction for tourists, were eaten up one by one or sold by those who were employed to conserve them. UI had the best archival library in Africa. In due course, that library became something of a museum. UI once had the best library in West Africa. The teachers, among whom were some of the best in the world were targeted and demoralized by their less talented colleagues who had “connections in high places.” UI once had the best Chemistry laboratory in Africa. The University of Ibadan was badly hit over the decades. When the rogue class wanted to destroy Nigeria, they started with the intellectual class or anything at all that they thought could stand in the way of the planned emergence of thugs, bandits, thieves and terrorists as the new elite. The idea of the university was trampled upon by an emergent anti-intellectual Nigerian elite that sought to dictate the processes, and standards for the production of knowledge and ideas. The town and the gown began to look alike, sometimes with the latter sounding less informed than the former in a reversal of roles. The first place to notice the effect was in the education sector at all levels and in that very department, iconic institutions took a fall: from the primary to the tertiary level. As Nigeria degenerated and small minds replaced visionaries at the commanding heights of governance, and touts became new superstars in a country once destined for greatness, the country careered down the downhill path and every value failed. At the height of its glory, every university in Nigeria was referred to by ordinary people as UI as in UI of Nsukka, UI of Kano, UI of Maiduguri, UI of Port Harcourt…įor years, indeed, the University of Ibadan, as symbol, signifier, and object of public imagination, embodied in every sense, what John Henry Newman calls “The Idea of a University”. It has produced some of the brightest minds that Nigeria can ever boast of, and has served the country as a factory for the training of generations of skilled workers.
Established in 1948 as a campus of the University College, London, somewhere around Eleiyele in Ibadan, the University of Ibadan as it later became known when it assumed an independent status in 1962, has the history of Nigeria, its greatness and challenges written into every grain of sand, every piece of grass, every sound in its chambers, the minutest echo in its premises so much that any encounter with the University of Ibadan is an encounter with a piece of history.
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