An Infamous Association

It was meant to be an election conducted by some of the most enlightened members of the Nigerian society. But the recently concluded election into executive positions of the National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS, will rival that conducted by members of the violence-prone National Union of Road Transport Workers, NURTW. Daggers, cutlasses and knives were freely deployed in the battle of supremacy between the contestants in broad daylight as the Old Parade Ground, Area 10, Abuja venue of the election was turned into a war zone.

It took the intervention of the police to restore peace in the area. The election was inconclusive. But this has not dissuaded the two presidential candidates from going round campuses, parading themselves as validly elected into the office. While on a visit to University of Sokoto last month, Babale Bashir, who claimed to have been elected as NANS leader at the Abuja National Convention, alleged that his rival, Bashir Usman Umar, a student of Dan Fodio University, Sokoto, is an impostor. Yet, the behaviour of the students is just characteristic of the leadership of the once noble association in recent times. Once a platform for agitation for better funding of the education sector and a useful ally of the human rights and pro-democracy groups, NANS, today, is a grotesque organisation. Gone are the days of nationally popular NANS leaders like Segun Okeowo, Akintunde Ojo, Chima Ubani, Chris Abashi, Emma Ezeazu, Chris Mammah, Labaran Maku, Banji Adegboro, Ben Oguntuase, Lanre Arogundade, Omoyele Sowore and Olusegun Mayegun. The organisation no longer speaks with one voice, as different leaders now see the association as an avenue to wealth. The fissure within NANS and its involvement in partisan politics began during the reign of the late General Sani Abacha. NANS had joined other pro-democracy groups to organise a series of protests against the late military dictator. But the supporters of the late dictator, who wanted to transmute into a life president, encouraged the factionalisation of NANS, with the emergence of a rival president, Oludare Ogunlana, who then went ahead to endorse Abacha’s unpopular bid. While singing the tune of his paymasters, Ogunlana on one occasion went to the extent of dismissing pro-democracy groups as fraudulent. “We Nigerian students shall not be part of the groups that collect foreign exchange from some countries to destabilise the country. Some elements cannot be using Nigerian students for their selfish reasons,” he said in response to pro-democracy groups’ calls for protest against Abacha. A similarly loutish conduct was on display during the 25th anniversary of the association in Abuja on 7 December, 2005. The NANS leader had rather infamously used the occasion to give their support for the tenure elongation project of former President Olusegun Obasanjo. “We make bold to say that until the elites bring somebody better than President Obasanjo, we will not let him go in 2007,” Kenneth Orkuma Hembe, then NANS president declared at the occasion. The student body then went on to decorate the former president with the award of “Defender of Democracy”, which drew a N5 million gift from Obasanjo and another N5 million from his friends and ministers. “Students union positions have become like political offices: an avenue for self-enrichment and promotion. Dialogue with the establishment has become dialogue with bank managers,” Reuben Abati, Chairman, Editorial Board of The Guardian wrote in reaction to the event. Unfortunately, nothing has changed as today’s NANS leaders are more comfortable with conferring awards on disreputable and undeserving politicians, in return for cash, than fighting for a better deal in the troubled education sector.