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Islam and its Proximity to Violence: Reactions to the SR Article, “Muslim Students Paralyse UI”

Posted August 20, 2010 · Charles O

The working title of this write-up is, “Islam and its Proximity to Violence: Reactions to the Sahara Reporters Article Entitled ‘Muslim Students Paralyse University of Ibadan’.” In a sense, the title is intended to sensationalize—at least insofar as my goal is to react directly to the Sahara Reporters article rather than to expound upon the purported proximity of Islam to Violence. I leave the later matter to another day.

I preface my substantive reactions to the Sahara Reporters article by noting that I assume that the reporting is truthful and accurate. Absent that assumption, this entire discussion becomes moot—and raises an entirely different set of questions.

The text of the original Sahara Reporters article is reproduced in quotes to provide context, and are interspersed with my reactions, which are produced in regular text.

Muslim students of the University of Ibadan, UI, this morning paralysed activities during a protest against the institution’s refusal to expel a part four law student, Miss Seun Olubunmi Adegunsoye who preached gospel in the school mosque last Friday.

The notion that students would deliberately “paralyze” activities at their own school suggests that they have not thought the matter through. This lack of forethought speaks ill of the intellect of the students engaged in this school-activities-paralyzing protest in the sense that in paralyzing their school’s activities, the students are ultimately the victims of their own action. Paralyzing the university’s activities invariably adversely impacts their ability to meet their primary objective for being in school in the first place—namely, to receive an education.

Furthermore, one would hope that the premier university of Nigeria has a process through which students can air grievances. I am willing to wager that such a process does not call for the paralyzing of school activities. University students ought to behave like civilized human beings, recognizing the rule of law, and conducting themselves with decorum.

Perhaps most importantly, however, the questions these protesters should ask themselves are: (1) do school rules and regulations proscribe proselytizing on school grounds in general and “preaching the gospel in a school mosque” in specific, and if so, (2) do school rules and regulations prescribe a sanction of expulsion to be imposed on a student found guilty of such an offense? If the answer to either of these questions is a “no”, then the protesting students’ demand for the accused student to be expelled is altogether arbitrary and baseless.

And our university students ought to know, more than anyone else, that rules and regulations cannot to be arbitrary. If we are to be a nation of laws, students at one of our nation’s most prestigious institutions of higher learning ought to be defenders of the rule of law and bulwarks against capriciousness.

Adegunsoye of Mountain of Fire and Miracle Church, according to reports, preached at the mosque last Friday to the Muslim faithful.

While she was preaching, the Muslim students mobilised themselves, attacked the lady and beat her mercilessly.

That university students would beat a fellow student for expressing her right to speech, however offensive her utterances were, is rather disturbing indeed. That they would beat a fellow student to such an extent that it is described as “merciless” is even more so. But for them to have exacted this sort of physical assault on a young lady—a member of the weaker sex—is so unconscionable as to be at once deeply distressing and unpardonable.

The marauding students could have taken the route one would expect of a group of educated people—that of taking the issue through the appropriate channels, if it is in fact the case that she had committed an infraction. But they chose instead to resort to self-help, to conduct themselves in an ad-hoc, arbitrary, and capricious manner, and, in effect, manifest their basest, most barbaric tendencies. They chose, instead, to behave criminally!

The school’s security men rescued her and took her away for questioning.

The actions of the University security personnel offend one’s sense of sensibilities to the high heavens. They “took her away for questioning”? The victim of a vicious, barbaric attack, rather than being taken to the hospital for emergency medical attention is taken away for questioning? What arrant madness! The security personnel in question ought to be taken to a lunatic asylum!

So, great, they “rescued” the victim of this gross assault; the reasonable and expected follow-on action would have been for them to call the local police (or the army—which, as it turns out, is a veritable civil policing option in Nigeria), if they were of insufficient strength or lacking the appropriate training and equipment with which to effectuate the arrest of the perpetrators.

Sources saidhe institution’s Vice Chancellor, Professor Olufemi Bamiro, appealed to the Muslim students not to foment any trouble, promising that the issue would appropriately investigated.

However, the Muslim students went haywire when they found out that the institution’s bulletin which was released this morning did not report the incident and the punishment the school authority has meted out to the preacher.

The students who barricaded all the entrances leading to the premier university and carried placards prevented both academic and non-academic staff from gaining access into the school this morning.

Here again, is another matter that boggles the mind. An institutional authority of the stature of Vice Chancellor, rather than insisting on adherence to rule of law, order, and decorum, chooses instead to “appeal to the Muslim students not to foment any trouble…” Should he really be appealing to these recalcitrant knuckleheads, or should he be assuring them in rather unambiguous terms that the school authority would prosecute any and all offenders (including the perpetrators of the assault) to the fullest extent of applicable school rules and regulations and the law? The VC lost an opportunity to be a strong leader, and by so doing, emboldened his unruly students, inadvertently exacerbating the situation.

What these students apparently do not understand is that their right to protest does not extend into a right to constitute a public nuisance. In other words, while the students have a right to engage in demonstrations, they crossed into the realm of criminality when they disrupted the flow of traffic and—to use the term that has been used—“paralyzed” the activities of the university.

Among the inscriptions written on their placard were: “No to terrorism. No religion should be allowed to terrorize us in our country”; “We will not take any unreligious act from any religious group”; “We will do everything possible to protect our religion”; “We will not accept insult from any religion”; “Olubunmi should be expelled from UI because she has done what is wrong”; “Olubunmi should be arraigned before a court of law for preaching in the mosque”.

According to a leaflet signed by a student called Almin, they demanded that Adegunsoye be expelled from the school and charged to court.

One cannot help but marvel at the reasoning advanced by the students of our premier university in this matter. Of course, a useful tactic in polemics, as in politics, is to bring one’s position to its extreme and most exaggerated standing through dramatization. Nonetheless, to characterize the allegation levied against the preaching student as “terrorism” is both disingenuous and laughable.

“We will not take any unreligious act from any religious group”? What does an “unreligious act” even mean in this context—or even in any context at all, for that matter?

“We will not accept insult from any religion” goes to betray the self-help mentality that pervades these students’ thinking—for when you say you will “not accept insult from anyone”, what you are really saying is that, should “anyone” insult you, you will be liable to visit instant physical retributions on them.

A letter, then, to these protesting students:

Dear UI student engaged in this riot: Shut up, sit down, and use your brain. There are appropriate conduits through which you should channel your grievance: the administrative process through your university’s grievance process, or the judicial process through the courts of law. Resorting to self-help, “mercilessly” assaulting a fellow student, and engaging in unruly protests in just plain stupid, unbecoming of a student at Nigeria’s premier university, and—this should give you pause—criminal.

“Olubunmi should be expelled from UI because she has done what is wrong”? Seriously? Does everyone who has done something “wrong” at UI automatically get expelled? If you had any sense, you would quote the section of your university’s rulebook that prescribes expulsion for the “crime” of preaching the gospel in your mosque, you dimwit!

“Olubunmi should be arraigned before a court of law for preaching in the mosque”? You are a shame to the University of Ibadan. Does it even make sense that “preaching in [a] mosque” would be a crime prosecutable in any court of law (maybe with the exception of a Shari’a court, which, the last time I checked, did not have jurisdiction in Ibadan). Moreover, the business of charging criminals to court is outside the control of the university. This is a matter that falls within the competency of the office of Ibadan’s (or Oyo’s) chief prosecutor and law enforcement officer!

Please, grow a brain—each one of you. If you deployed the exuberance you have displayed in this foolish school-activities-paralyzing protests towards some intellectual pursuit (such as simply reading a book or two), you just might.

Other demands include: Investigating religious leaders behind the lady, carry out medical examination on the lady to find out whether she is mentally sound, ban Christians from preaching in public places in the school, and punish anyone who facilitated her release from the school security net.

Indeed, these additional demands are no less ludicrous than the demand that the accused student be expelled. Whom exactly are the protesters making these inane and asinine demands of? Do the school authorities have the power to investigate “religious leaders”? Under what authority can the university “carry out medical examination on the lady to find out whether she is mentally sound”—and to what end?

In principle, I have no issues with folks advocating an agenda (such as campaigning for a ban on all proselytizing; the issue of whether the campaign will be successful is another matter), but any right-thinking person—even one without a university education—ought to see that an argument to specifically “ban Christians from preaching in public places in the school”, given its explicit bias against Christians, is inherently flawed. Shall we allow Muslims to preach then? How about Ifa worshippers? Can atheists conduct an open seminar entitled, “The Delusion of Religionists”? As with every other demand, the last one (“punish anyone who facilitated her release from the school security net”) is as infinitely pointless as it is senseless: to whom exactly is it directed?

Official reaction from the institution could not be sought as at the time of filing this report but it was gathered that the VC would address the press later in the day.

The school’s PRO, Mrs. Joke Akinpelu who was on leave, rushed down to see what was happening but she was also prevented from entering the school.

Her words, “I can’t say anything now because I am on leave but I have called the VC who will later address the press. As you can see, I can’t even enter but I will see if I can jump the fence to enter the premises and see how we can bring the situation under control.”

And so here we are. A student population (I use the term “population” here to refer to the group of protesting Muslim students), who have chosen to conduct multiple criminal acts, namely: physically assaulting a fellow student, causing obstruction to the flow of traffic and the regular conduct of business, and, very likely, damaging university and personal property—judging by how rioting Nigerian university students tend to behave. (I’m sure my lawyer friends can translate these into very specific prosecutable legal charges). It is so bad that even a school administrator, whom I am sure is advanced in years, now considers jumping over a fence to be a viable option for gaining entrance into her place of employment and Nigeria’s premier citadel of learning!

While my hope is that these protesting students will be prosecuted for the criminal acts they have committed in this matter (notably the assault of Ms. Adegunsoye), I would be remiss not to advise them to start behaving more like humans whose intellect and sensibilities are in the process of being refined by the tertiary educational process. They must begin to demonstrate an ability to subject their arguments and actions to tests of critical analysis, rational diagnosis, and intelligent scrutiny (apologies to the late Professor Zulu Sofola). They can no longer be content with simply indulging their basest, most animalistic tendencies—for if our university students, eventual graduates, and ostensible leaders of tomorrow are no better than louts, hooligans, and area boys, then we, as a nation, are indeed finished.

CEO
August 2010.

Citation: Muslim Students Paralyse University Of Ibadan Over Student Preacher, Sahara Reporters, http://saharareporters.com/news-page/muslim-students-paralyse-university-ibadan-over-student-preacher-pm-news-lagos. Published August 16, 2010. 

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