We Want Our Good Old Unilag Back!

It is with a heavy heart that I announce the sudden demise of the University of Lagos, a.k.a Unilag. Unilag died on Tuesday, May 29, 2012. He is survived by Moshood Abiola University.

That is the best way I think I can start my piece this week. I was furious, nay mad, when the announcement was made. Mind you, I did not watch the live broadcast made by President Goodluck Jonathan on national TV early Tuesday morning. Why? Because PHCN struck! There was no power for me to watch an important broadcast by the president of my dear country on the day we were celebrating our democracy. I got to know about the renaming of Unilag through a friend’s update on his Blackberry.

Initially, I thought it was a joke until other friends on my BB began to update their status accordingly. I was shocked because I could not see how that should be an important item on the president’s list. Don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong about naming a federal university after late Moshood Abiola. Absolutely nothing! But I think there are more important issues President Jonathan should deal with. For instance, on a day like that, and I bet I am speaking the minds of many Nigerians, I will expect my president to tell me the number of kilowatts of power he has been able to generate in one year and how many he will generate in the next year; the number of employment opportunities he has created; how much improvement the economy has recorded, and not announce the change of name of a university! Perhaps it is just a case of misplaced priority.

Without being passionate about the issue, and like my good friend Phillip Jakpor wrote on his Facebook wall: “The political motive for renaming UNILAG MAU may be wrong but there is nothing wrong in naming the institution after Abiola.” I agree with Jakpor, but I still believe President Jonathan has done more harm than good to the brand Unilag. It is more than a name. It is about the brand and all that it stands for.

I recall with nostalgia how some of us longed to bag a first degree from that university. There is the prestige that comes with telling people, “I am a student of Unilag”, with emphasis placed on the way the name is pronounced. This says a lot about the school and the person as a student. Even foremost Nigerian designer, Lanre Da Silva Ajayi (LDA), whom I met on Tuesday, the day the announcement was made, understood what it meant to attend an institution of that standing. LDA told me how much she wanted to be a student of that school before she travelled to England for study. “If I had not gone to England, it would have been Unilag,” she told me. Yours sincerely also had to return to Unilag for a Masters since I didn’t get my first from there.

There have been many arguments regarding the renaming. And I couldn’t agree less with my friend Jakpor when he argued that the political motive is wrong: “Placating the South-west for what I don’t know. But if we have Ahmadu Bello University, Nnamdi Azikiwe University and Obafemi Awolowo University, what’s wrong with having Abiola, judging by his contributions to attainment of democracy? Most of the students protesting are too young to understand what the June 12 election and the events immediately after gave birth to. However, I am against the political motives. And yes, there are more pressing issues than the renaming of a university.”

Abiola deserves to be immortalised, yes, but not at this time and not with a university like University of Lagos. What we want from President Jonathan is his deliverables in the past one year. Whatever happened to all his campaign promises? It is when he has been able to name what he has achieved since he assumed office last year that we can say he has a right to immortalise Abiola. Part of the gains of democracy which Abiola died for is to have steady power supply for us to watch the president talk on TV, have a stable economy, create more jobs, and more.

President Jonathan should hearken to the voice of the students who took to the streets for their university to be returned to them. Unilag has been stolen from all of us and we want it back as soon as possible. No name change is acceptable. We want our good old Unilag back! 

June 01, 2012