Faith Alofe
The Management of Obafemi Awolowo University, in a response to the peaceful protest staged by the students of the school has served query letters to students who were considered "leaders of the struggle".
Recall that the peaceful protest was staged as a result of the death of a student, Miss Adeshina Aishat who died at the Seventh Day Adventist Hospital, Ile Ife, where she was referred to by the university’s health centre. The Management thereafter shutdown the school on October 2nd, 2021 while exams were ongoing for over a month and was later reopened November 5th for students to finish their examinations after the committee constituted by the school to carry out investigations submitted their reports.
A viral Facebook post shows a query letter dated 7th of January stating the offence supposedly committed by the students during the protest and has been given 48 hours to respond to query stating reasons why he shouldn’t be punished for the alleged offence.
Speaking to the recipient of the viral query letter, Bolade Omoyemi, a student of the departments Dramatic Arts said “ I was not at the protest ground on the first day the protest started because I got to know about it late, but I joined the second day and I have not done anything that can warrant a query letter from the school”.
However, claims that some students in the Faculty of Law and the Departments of English and Literary Studies have also been served query letters was debunked as the concerned students confirmed that they haven't received any official letters from their respective faculties and departments so they don’t have a say on the current issue.
Also, Anonymous sources revealed that some of the elected student union officers have also been served query letters. A "student leader" who doesn’t want his name in prints affirmed that the query letter has been served to them. In his opinion, the query letter is an avenue for them to defend themselves before any further steps will be taken by the school on the issue.
Meanwhile, the query letters served to the students are not well received by the student community who see the actions taken by the school as downplaying the effort of students in fighting for rights and common interest of their colleagues.
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