OAU Students Dreading Or Anticipating Strikes?

By Akinfenwa Olaitan

For us in the OAU community, the past week has been a particularly dramatic and interesting week. Quite a number of events that erupted based on the Professor Elujoba trial reflected a lot of opinions of both students and staff members of OAU. In fact, we can say that every faction of the university had a role to play in the events of this week.

First off, recalling to mind that the erstwhile Vice Chancellor was arraigned to court by the EFCC, leading to the call for the solidarity strike by the ASUU OAU Chapter on Monday and Tuesday, and then the controversy with the national body of ASUU. In addition, the power outage and water scarcity on campus and all the ruckus that ensued led to lecture boycotts by the Students' Union that generally brought only one thing to mind - Strike.

The all too familiar feeling of impending strike was so pronounced that students envisioned that all academic activities would be suspended for a long time.
What surprises me most, however, is that the feeling of impending strike was gladly welcome by OAU students, rather than feared. I was amazed to realize that many students actually wanted the troubling events of the week to result into a strike! Isn't it interesting that this is OAU, where embarking on a strike used to be a most dreadful thing for us. This weird anticipation resulted in a conflict of desires for us because while we wanted better welfare conditions, we also secretly wanted the poor conditions to result into a protest and consequent strike.

And so we've had a smooth session for once and we're already missing the old days of  This is quite funny, as students were actually asking for a few weeks of strike so as to relax. Many already seriously preparing to go home, many discarded their upcoming tests and stopped preparing for them altogether. In fact, the jubilation that erupted when a lecture was boycotted made it all too clear what students wanted.
However, regrettably for some, the crisis has settled, electricity and order has been restored. Classes are holding and the looming strike has been forestalled for the meantime. So, we can all forget our fanciful ideas of a premature holiday and go back to our studies peacefully. Finally, tests and exams are fast approaching and our OAU has a new reputation of a smooth calendar which should be a cause of joy to us, not of displeasure.