By Moses Oludele Idowu
The erection of the golden statue of the First Lady, Mrs Oluremi Tinubu at the heart of the campus of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ife coming at this time is offensive to moral, ethical and religious sensibilities. The imposition of this “golden calf” before the congregation of the learned and a community of scholars offends me personally and evokes a sense of anger and outrage just as Aaron’s erection of the same brought divine wrath on the congregation in the Wilderness.
There are many ways to honour a person especially when that person is still living. And honour must be commensurate with contributions and service. It defeats the essence and motive of honour when it is given underserved.
I salute the Ooni of Ife, Oba Ogunwusi for building the largest hostel on the university campus to accommodate students. Accomodation is one of the major challenges on campus. I also commend him for the construction of a 2.7 kilometre road on the campus of the same university to mark his 50- birthday. Naming these projects after the First Lady to honour her is also commendable. A person has the right to name his own projects after whoever he wishes to honour. It is allowed.
But the erection of a golden statue of a woman right on the centre of a university campus offends the sense of aesthetics of a university.
The making of a large image of a woman that is still living in golden flashing colours at the center of a community of scholars offends my religious and spiritual sensibilities. It gives the wrong image and connotes a distorted message to upcoming scholars. The idea of immortalising a living person smacks of idolatry which should not be allowed in a university especially one built with the proceeds of cocoa and kolanuts, the sweat of our forefathers. Ife has many gods and godesses and Oluremi Tinubu’s golden statue would have been appropriate inside Ife or even before the Ooni’s palace, the city of numerous gods; but not inside a university built and maintained with public funds.
Nigerians need to recover the very idea of a university and the sacredness of a university community as a space for learning. A university is not a place where you erect any image to any politician or demagogue. It is not even a place you name after just anyone.
When the University of Ife, Great Ife then, was named after Obafemi Awolowo in 1987 it was believed that the honour was well- deserved due to his unmatched, unsurpassed contributions to education and even to the founding of the university. Even then some still opposed it. I remember Professor Wole Soyinka saying it was not right. That Awo could have been honoured with other things but not naming University of Ife after him. He was not against Awo he was only defending the idea, the honour and sanctity of a university as an entity. And rightly so. Unfortunately many scholars did not see what he was defending and even today still can’t see it.
The idea of a university is now fully lost and thoroughly deconstructed and even generally discredited among Nigerians including university teachers themselves. It is a pity. I recommend that they all go back and read John Newman’s article, The Idea of a University.
I am not aware of Oluremi Tinubu’s contributions to education or how she has created “spaces for learning.” Is she a scholar? Does she inspires scholarship by her life and works?
How many chairs has she endowed? How many grants has she facilitated to a Federal or State universities? How many children has she given scholarships? As a senator for 12 years what bills did she push to expand the frontiers of learning and what was her contribution to make university education affordable and stop the persistent agitations of academic staff?
On the other hand we know what the government of her husband has done to education and for the generality of Nigerians in the last 17 months. It is now clear that a student may need a loan to have higher education in Nigeria. A university teacher now has to reduce the number of times he goes to work because his salary may be expended only on fuel. And this is general knowledge.
It is this in particular and all that can’t be mentioned here that makes this cultic veneration of a human being with a golden statue very offensive to public imagination. The very idea evokes displeasure and nostalgia in the public mind.
I agree with Mark Twain that “it is better to deserve honours and not have them than to have honours that you do not deserve.”
At Iwaya, Yaba a school built through the auspices of a missionary and which has been there for many years was suddenly changed. Reagan Memorial Primary School was named after a missionary for her contribution to the establishment of the school. Today the name of that missionary has been removed and it is now Oluremi Tinubu Primary School. This is in Lagos State where Oluremi Tinubu and her husband call the shot even till now.
This is the kind of violence to cultural and institutional memory that I deplore and which is offensive to me.
I do not understand the craving for honour by anyone. I do not understand why anyone worries or craves immortality. If your work creates meaning and is ennobling enough for Humanity then your place is guaranteed forever. If your work lives in the minds and imagination of a people and cultural memory of a collectivity then you can not be forgotten. We still remember Homer, Sophocles, Cicero, Paul etc. Cicero was a senator like Oluremi Tinubu but few people even know that today. He is remembered more today for his learning and for his contributions to the life of the mind. That is the way to immortality.
You don’t pay or donate for it, you work for it.
I am also surprised that there has been no whimper of protest or comment from the university community against this assault on its aesthetics. Or is there something I am not seeing? Where is the spirit of Great Ife of other day and bygone era?
Just recently I had reason to comment and bemoan the declining academic fortunes of Ife in an essay on the Global Ranking of universities where Ife fell far below other first-generation universities to the very bottom. It now appears that something may have indeed died in this university. Obafemi Awolowo University used to be called Oba Awon Unifasiti (OAU)i e., king of the universities, by her once vibrant, radical and revolutionary students. It appears now that social consciousness is at a low ebb. Perhaps what we saw in the Ranking was indeed a true reflection of a king that once was but now dethroned. Oba Awon ti Waja (the king is dead)
I commend the First Lady for her promise to donate one billion naira to the university to reclaim the horticulture and beauty of the university. She told us at her husband’s inauguration that her family is wealthy already and they don’t need to touch public money. Who else could donate one billion naira at a go but a matriarch of a wealthy family? It is not necessary asking her what work she does or what her husband does. Politics in Nigeria is itself an industry and the most promising and profitable industry of all.
I hope other universities would not take a cue from here by erecting her statues everywhere on their campuses to attract donations and before long our universities become a community of statues and monuments instead of learning.
Have a wonderful weekend.
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© Moses Oludele Idowu
October 20, 2024
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