NUGA: THE COUNT-DOWN CONTINUES

It was another morning again on the 13th February, 2014 when students of Obafemi Awolowo University, OAU, and delegates to the 24th Nigerian University Games, NUGA, woke up to another day of waiting for the games to commence earnestly. As part of preparations and to beat off the boredom, all teams went out early in the morning to keep their adrenaline high and in the process, people from a wide range of places mingled with each other and got along quite well. The possibility of emotional matters cannot however be ruled out as some young men particularly had their eyes on ladies.
On the economic plain, many businesses had sprung up at almost every corner of the university campus especially around the sports complex while they were generously patronized. If this does not defeat the purpose of the university management’s decision to set up a make-shift market for the period of the games is another matter entirely. In the make-shift market itself, traders could be seen moving into their allotted stalls and putting up goods and wares such as food, drinks, clothing, furniture etc. with their patronization also going on. Meanwhile, notices were already put up at the market first, with respect to the modules operandi of traders in the market and secondly, for the prospective sale of the materials used to construct the market stalls immediately after NUGA. (Find copies of both notices attached to this piece).
Hard ware traders were not in any way the only business people present at the event. In just one glance, one could see a lot of banners advertising numerous businesses such as banks, telecommunication companies and beverage producers. Some of them threw the environment agog with blast of music from their tents as they gave incentives to attract the student population to their services.
Away from the hustle and bustle of the sport arena to the residence. Some delegates in the halls of residence were commendable abided by the rules of the host university community while some others simply walked in the opposite direction. From about the second night of arrival, there had been cases of people smoking within the halls of residence, an act strictly forbidden. As a quick response, members of the defunct students’ union security committee embarked on a tour to sensitize and stopped the guests from such and similar acts as it would no longer be tolerated. Worse still is the frank decision of some delegates--from University of Nigeria, Nsukka and Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye for instance—to continue to have their bath, not in the bath rooms provided but outside, in the full glare of the public. This became a source of embarrassment to many students of OAU as they have not ceased to complain.
The opening ceremony for the games have been slated for Saturday 15th February, fingers are crossed and all available hands are on deck to make the day and indeed the entire event a memorable one.
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Forces Storm OAU Ahead of NUGA, Protests Among Students and Guests Arrive

Ahead of the 24th Nigerian University Games, NUGA, which is scheduled to be held at the Obafemi  Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, men and women of some security outfits have been deployed to the school in order to beef up security which would be much needed during the sporting events.

In the early hours of Tuesday 11th February, 2014, a large contingent of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps were already on ground, largely at the sport arena with a few parading the university campus.
Things however took a dramatic turn when hundreds of  men of the Nigerian Police Force (heavily armed mobile policemen inclusive) stormed the school and headed straight for the Obafemi Awolowo(popularly called AWO ) hall on the order of the university management to forcefully eject students from the halls of residence. Information has it that Awo was chosen as the first point of operation because of the particularly radical nature of students resident there. But the story did not go down in a negative for the "Awoites " as they did blocked every entrance into the hall and refused entry to any policeman or university staff who accompanied them. The drama went on "Awoites " singing the school's anthem and other anti-oppression songs.
Their argument and reason for their display however was not an unwillingness to leave the hall at that time or a refusal for it to be used as a lodging for NUGA participants, but that it was wrong for the university management to threaten them out of the hall with harmed men and they bent on showing that such moves were never going to work.
The school's chief security officer, Dr Paul Ogidi and other university staff there present later decided out of frustration to leave the hall with their police escorts and go to other halls instead.

Their next point of call was the Adekunle Fajuyi (popularly called FAJ ) hall. There, members of the school's security committee addressed the hall warden while the large force of policemen waited outside. The security committee members told the hall warden that they were there to let the police takeover the hall of residence for the period of NUGA so they can provide adequate security for the participants. The hall warden and other hall staff nevertheless argued that it would not be necessary to bring in policemen to the hall and all needed spaces for the expected athletes were ready. On that note, the military occupation of Faj hall was quietly repelled.

Later at night, the previously cut power supply was restored and the sport contingent for the University of Nigeria, Nsukka arrived, being the first visiting team at OAU NUGA 2014.

24th NUGA Games, OAU and Militant Students

For the simple and quite uninformed, NUGA is the acronym for Nigerian University Games. A bi-annual sporting event among Nigerian universities which aim, I think, apart from being a noise-making jamboree and student gyrations, should be a mean of bringing Nigerian university youths together for a particular education and societal integration through sports. This event also should be one that would build in the youths of the university communities a spirit of sportsmanship on an intellectual level in other to be able to translate such into an active nation-building tool. Furthermore, a population upsurge in a host community will be an economic advantage for local business owners as students alone cannot benefit from such in isolation. This great sporting activity however had its first outing at the Premier University of Ibadan in 1966.
And here we are. The Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife had won the hosting right of the 24th NUGA games with a lot of excitement, expectations and sheer pride on the part of several students for probably no other reason than the fact that a once in a student life event would be held in theirs and they would tell tales of same to even generations yet unborn. The hopes of a set of students were however dashed as they graduated before the D-day due to the continuous postponement of NUGA by the university management as a result of unpreparedness and the non-availability of infrastructures. Times and times again, rumors were echoed of the approach of the long awaited event only for the larger community to be disappointed again. The five months long show-down between the academic staff of Nigerian universities and the federal government did not also help matters,—oops!—maybe it did. At a point, the games were slated for October 2013, right in the middle of the FG-ASUU tussle. The university management led by Professor Idowu Bamitale Omole could probably have been forced to hold the event then, but the obvious was that the needed infrastructures were not just available and an embarrassment would have been inevitable. To OAU management, the ASUU strike was nothing short of a saving grace and another pretext to postpone the long awaited NUGA. For some students who left their various comfort zones in that period and travelled to Ile-Ife just to witness the sports, there was nothing more annoying than that particular disappointment. But for the terminal students who should have graduated in the strike period, they had a hope of seeing the games—if they are very interested is another question entirely.
The strike eventually ended, school magically resumed and February 12th-22nd, 2014 was chosen for the final D-day. As part of preparations, the university management in all “wisdom and prudence” ordered all students resident on campus to evacuate themselves and valuable belongings latest by 12pm on the 7th February so as to give the residence a facelift for the comfort of expected guests.
This move, as may be expected, generated a lot of heat among students with some issuing a blatant refusal to comply. Their arguments:
°NUGA is an event held for the benefit of students and not the university management or staff, therefore, the purpose would have been defeated if students were not on campus to partake of the benefits.
°When a sporting event is held, the home team needs the support of their fan base. If OAU students are not available to sheer their own, who will?
°How on earth can we hear that a landlord asked his tenants to leave the house, while their tenancy hasn’t expired, because he wants to throw a party and would be expecting some guests? OAU students paid accommodation fee for a session, so, they believe, it would be an injustice to send them out while the session still runs. There are even rumors that the university management had received allocations for the hotel lodging of expected participants.
Some students on their own part, even from the 6th had begun to move their properties out of the halls of residence to friends’ place in the staff quarters and Ile-Ife township so much that by evening on the 7th, the mass exodus was very visible. As a means for the management to show its seriousness, on the 8th, there was power cut in all student rooms. Then the drama began.
It was a time when some students had to show their tenacity and dare-devil traits as a good number of students still stayed behind despite the “get out” order, power cut, and even rumors of the deployment of mobile policemen to forcefully eject students. In Obafemi Awolowo hall popularly called ‘Awo’ for instance, lots of students can be seen going about their their daily life and spicing it with the traditional “aro”. In fact, on the 10th, a stray antelope met its waterloo when it journeyed into the hall. In Adekunle Fajuyi hall popularly called ‘Faj’, the story remains pretty the same, but no antelope. However, it was a different story in the female halls as the evacuation order had more effct. The relatively gentle female nature may be an explanation for that.
For students who stayed behind, certain spots in their halls of resident became the new centre of activities. In Faj for instance, the café, upper buttery/television room, and “photocopy area” as popularly called, all became what can be called room annexes as students could be seen charging their devices, ironing their cloths, playing musical instruments and even cooking (since electricity is the conventional medium of cooking in OAU). The situation could be nevertheless stressful as some students are forced to go far into the academic area to get the most basic of their works done with electricity. The argument here is that the university management has been insensitive to the plight of students by asking them, presumably, to go home for a period of two weeks not long after resuming after six months. What about students who came from a long distance? They asked. What about the expenses to be incurred? They asked again.
Some renovations are on the way, infrastructure projects are being finalized, NUGA approaches faster, the resilience and resolution of OAU students are about to undergo more test. Management or students, who will bend or break? Only time can presently tell. 
   

NIGERIAN YOUTHS AND SOCIAL MEDIA

The first question of this discuss is: who is the Nigerian youth? We may not need to talk at length or write an epistle before we know who a Nigerian is; simple, a citizen of the country created by the British around the rivers Niger and Benue confluence. But who a youth is in this country may take a little bit of a twist as we have a number of social and religious “youth” clubs with most members in their 50s and 60s. The story gets pathetic when the government, in its infinite wisdom, appoints a man in his 60s also to head a youth organization. Many political jamborees have been put up by purported party youths composed of family men and women. The physical definition of who a youth is has become more of a challenge than imaginable; yet, certain things distinguish a class of people.
In the not-so-long past, the range of people who “ran things” (on this side of the world) politically, socially, financially and other wise were indeed the grown and old ones. In the days when ten-year-olds got into primary one and you could not get into the university until about twenty-five, there was no real opportunity for the young to express themselves in certain fora not to talk of contributing their quota to the way they were been governed. But in the wake of the internet revolution, a lot of things changed simultaneously. First, there came a means to draw a line between the youth and the youth. The very nature of the internet itself fascinates only the curious, exuberant and agile, qualities found almost exclusively within an age bracket. Still on the nature of this strange stranger, the seeming complexity of it could not have been more than a job which an idle generation picks to sulk upon while it waits for table of age and leadership to be turned on it. The internet was one of those toy innovations with probably no real future. It just turned out to be the pad on which the (real) youth would be launched into his/her rightful place in time.
In the same vein, several innovations and job opportunities sprang up from the hitherto dormant and lifeless generation who could not live free of the umbilical cord maliciously tying it to the aprons of a (consciously or unconsciously) suppressive generation. Website development and ownership, superluminal messaging and communications and other related activities became (almost) an order of the day. In this new wave of development, the socio-political leadership was almost always shot out, the youth was getting a new definition and was beginning to take up challenges.
As a derivative of the internet, the social media has also come to grace the stage of enlightenment, education and activism. Innovations such as Facebook, Twitter, Google Talk et c. have improved the way and costs of communication, business and governance amongst other things. Today, the social media gives every individual a leverage with which they can participate in and influence policy making. This is obvious by the fact that an obnoxious law to criminalize social media activism and criticism is currently been considered in the Nigerian National Assembly.
The fact that the Nigerian youth has a lot of ends to meet on every front cannot be over-stated, and the role of the social media in this cannot be underrated. Academically, it is no longer news that the country’s education sector has sunk beyond the imaginable and all hands need to be on deck to revitalize it. One of the youth’s contributions to this is to harness every opportunity to improve his/her intellectual capacity by connecting with people, not only in the country but also across the globe. What are the best candidates for this exploit if not the social media? Students around the world can now meet and exchange ideas in their related fields and other areas of interest.
Economically, as stated above, the business horizon and job opportunity of individuals have been widened by the internet and particularly the social media. People now make money through their online presence via various means: advertisement for instance. Funny enough, you can even get a job just as a social media manager to someone or a cooperate body.
If we want to know how the social media can be used to influence governance, one just has to look back at the Arab spring which began in Tunisia in 2011 and is still on-going for the most part in Syria, and the part played by social media activists and bloggers. There are currently arguments in some quarters that the anti-socialmedia-criticism law been considered by the Nigerian National Assembly is an attempt to prevent an imminent “African spring”.
On the whole, there are limitless opportunities which the social media has presented before the Nigerian youth, but a little caution needs to be exercised at some juncture. Starting with security issues. Be very careful on how you relate and respond to requests, invitations and fund transfer because the cyber space has also become a haven for people with nefarious characters with intentions, but not limited, to defraud. Time management also comes to play here. It has been discovered that a lot of young people spend the better part of their time on social media without adding real value to themselves. This is where you have to answer the question of purpose; why am I on social media?
It is incumbent on the current generation of young people to make use of every opportunity available to things around for the betterment of the wider society; the social media is a veritable tool and weapon to achieve this aim. If missed, it may take several generations to be regained.