However, I can assure you that IT WILL BE WORTH IT. (Pun intended)
Dear Reader,
Let me warn you in advance that this is going to be a long read, although still incapable of capturing completely the struggles, victories, pain, betrayal of 7 years.
However, I can assure you that IT WILL BE WORTH IT. (Pun intended)
My room mate at the University of Lagos, sometime in 2015 sent me a message this evening. He’s a great guy. Finished with a first class, Economics, brilliant dude. Interned in one of the best financial houses and I think works currently in the Oil and gas sector.
My guy is so blessed, he even loaned me 500,000 Naira sometime in 2020. Anyone who can drop such amount for anyone in Buhari’s regime, you should know he’s not a small boy.
My rich first class friend just asked me if I have thought through my journey and he asked if it was actually worth it. I know him very well and I know he’s a sincere young man. I think his question is actually not borne out of any cynicism. But for the sake of many of you who actually have the same question in mind (why should any young man choose to waste 6 years of his life just like that?), I choose to answer publicly.
It was worth it when I and a few others took the bullet for over 35,000 students when they were using ”pure water” to bathe and almost everyone became patronizers of perfume shops.
It was worth it when I helped a dentistry student and we both took the risk to expose the decay in facilities and the wanton corruption at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), where students were forced to pay medical bills of patients so they could qualify to sit exams. The whole class of 600 Level students were about to give up as they could not meet up with the required number of procedures and that was an automatic extra year. Even the best student in class was not going to be spared.
Till today, none of them can tell who clandestinely took a camera into the clinic and made videos to publish to the world. One thing led to another, they graduated successfully.
They are all Dentists today.
It was seriously worth it when despite being under suspension, I led students to protest the suspension of graduates. Funny right? Yes, UNILAG Management vindictively rusticated a visually impaired activist, Lawrence and Ochuba who has even collected his certificate.
I led Comrades to the campus and threatened to lock all offices if they were not reinstated immediately. I and 11 others were arrested, locked up and sent to Kirikiri prisons on a Saturday morning, April 1, 2017 on the cause.
They were reinstated just as we were released from prison on April 7, 2017. I was still not reinstated.
It was worth it that the dreams of these men were not shattered.
Ochuba is a big man today, always disturbing me with pictures of how he’s enjoying his money alone somewhere in the East and in Lagos.
It was worth it at YABATECH when I and Sanyaolu Juwon hid in a smelly toilet when we were being chased by security agents, after we forced the Rector then, Dr Kudirat to reverse outrageous fees imposed on students. From 34,000, we brought it down to about 23,000 or so.
If we were not chased that day, we were taking the fees downwards to 9,000 because we came, armed with facts and documents. One of the Student Committee members snitched on us, hinted the management on what we were bringing to the negotiation table. Samuel Adedoyin was there.
When I signed a writing contract with Opera, it was worth it that I lost the contract that paid me very well because I wrote against Elumelu’s UBA mass sack- sacking people through text messages in the new year. That single story shook the Management and they reconsidered their actions.
How far did it go? I do not know. But it was worth it.
It was worth it when we led the struggle in LAUTECH at a time when the academic and economic life of students and indigenes was put on hold for over a year. We made sure it was opened in the space of one week of marathon meetings and protests without compromise. That was the popular CONSTITUTED AUTHORITY protest. We won and students went back to finish and graduate. Many of them are doing very fine in and outside the country today.
It was also worth it during TASUED struggle when students were forced to pay crazy fees and many were at the verge of dropping out. The struggle was codenamed STAFEC. 11 of us escaped in a car that was supposed to commute 4 persons when we were chased by state actors.
We took the fight directly to the Government house the next day. Thousands of students were on the streets. The matter was tabled, resolved and thousands graduated successfully.
It was worth it when Law students at UNILAG; a whole final year class were to be denied examinations (automatic extra year) because they couldn’t meet the required attendance for a particular course. While they were at the Lagoon front praying, I took up the matter, posted it on Facebook, called the Dean of the Faculty and I was chatting with Professor Atsenuwa till midnight, appealing, using logic, subtle threats, everything in my arsenal to convince her to allow them sit the exams. The students were deceived to think I was the problem because I posted their plight on social media. Some of them called me on phone and insulted me. Eventually, the Dean promised to work on my appeal. All of them were allowed to sit the exams. Many of them are Lawyers today. Ekpeki Chovwe, multiple award-winning writer was there.
It was worth it when Patrick Majekodunmi Sankara and 5 others at the University of Benin were suspended by the UNIBEN Senate, my organization, ANSA took the next bus to UNIBEN and they were reinstated in less than 5 days of our intervention. They are all graduates today, doing very fine.
The time in prison was worth it.
I went in there, brought out 7 child inmates and partook in advocacy that brought out 207 child inmates in 2 weeks.
I could remember taking one to Ajah and another to his house in Idi-Oro. Their parents thought they were dead already. They were sent to prison by Lagos TaskForce because they didn’t have a “means of livelihood”. I don’t know where they are today. But it was worth it that they didn’t rot in Kirikiri prisons at the age 15/16.
It was worth it when I and Sanyaolu Juwon mobilized market women at Sabo Market, Ikorodu after they woke up one morning to find out that their shops have been looted and demolished by the Lagos state government. One woman fainted right in front of me. We shut down the whole market, the Iyaloja ran away, led the market men and women till they were properly attended to by the Lagos State Government and were compensated. How much? I don’t know till today.
But it was worth it that the livelihood of families did not end in ruins. Schimar here is a witness.
It was worth it when Juwon and I “took standing” from Ore, Ondo to Owerri, Imo State to visit 33 Comrades who were either expelled or suspended by the draconic FUTO Management.
We got them lawyers through the help of former President of CDHR, Barrister Malachy Ugwummadu. We won in Court. They were all reinstated.
Today, Ogbonna Collins (Rochas) is a graduate and most likely doing PDP politics. Mind you, I was still under suspension.
Elvis Onuoha, one of the expelled activists then graduated and is serving us fine pictures from the abroad today.
It was worth it when we visited Ife and protested the release of Gbenga VON and other activists who were sent to Koshere Prisons by the wicked OAU Management. VON is a journalist with PUNCH today and he’s doing very fine.
It was worth it when I made public the arrest of my friend, Ayoola Babalola, when he managed to send a Facebook message to me from Ibara prisons. At that time, practically nobody knew where he was. Ayoola is a journalist today in Abuja. He was the one who published the popular Yes Daddy story.
For every time in 7 years that I led or joined protests against victimization of students, illegal demolition of communities of poor people so high rise buildings of the rich can be constructed, casualization of workers, massive corruption in high places, joined many #FREETHIS, #FREETHAT and that I even tweeted from comfort, it was worth it.
Sincerely, I know what my good friend is saying, but some of us have only chosen to see life beyond Adams Smith’s scarce resources or dy/dx.
- Adeyeye Olorunfemi