JONATHAN’s BROADCAST FALLOUT: Outrage, kudos over renaming of UNILAG

Outrage and kudos, yesterday, greeted the announcement by President Goodluck Jonathan renaming the University of Lagos as Moshood Abiola University, Lagos. In a national broadcast to mark his one year in office, President Jonathan said: “The Federal Government has decided that late Chief M.K.O. Abiola  be honoured, for making the ultimate sacrifice in the pursuit of justice and truth.
Destiny and circumstances conspired to place upon his shoulders a historic burden, and he rose to the occasion with character and courage. He deserves recognition for his martyrdom, and public-spiritedness and for being the man of history that he was”.
The president’s broadcast immediately led to outrage from the University of Lagos community as students trooped to the street in protest, while other academics argued that the President did not follow due process before  changing the name of the university. Others however commended the president for his action with members of Abiola’s family saying they were ecstatic at the honour done to late Abiola.
The protesting students of University of Lagos barricaded all access roads to the school armed with placards and marched from Yaba College of Technology junction through the ever-busy Herbert Macaulay Way, Sabo and Yaba areas of the state and finally gathered at the school gate chanting anti-Jonathan slogans and vowed to remain at that spot through out the night and until the president reverses his decision.

They also threatened that they would stay out of classes as long as the president decides to uphold the new name of the  university.  They argued that the president could have named the presidential villa, Aso Rock, or National Assembly after late Abiola.
The students demanded a reversal of the president’s action saying “the name change is coming at a time when we are planning to bury our late Vice Chancellor and celebrate the school’s 50th anniversary.
According to them, “we have blocked all access roads to the school because we want government to know that we are against their decision to change the name of our school to Moshood Abiola University (MAU). Our academic calendar has not been stable and this would further disrupt it.”
Some of the placards carried by the students read- “reverse or resign now”, “FG killed Sofoluwe”, “Unilag can’t be called MAU”, among others.
In his reaction, the Dean, Students’ Affairs, Professor Kayode Amund, pointed out that the school authority was not involved in any form of consultations with government concerning the change of name. “This is a crisis period and I must confess that the school authorities were taken by surprise because, despite the fact that this is a federal government school, we expect that government would have consulted us before a big announcement like this is made. It is the students’ legitimate right to protest but we are trying to calm them down so that the protests don’t become violent and destructive”, he said.

VANGUARD