The outcome of 20 years of May-8 Commemoration

By General Jamo

It is good to remember the past for it reminds us the sacrosanct lessons of those times, it is better to concentrate on the present time since it is where experiences are useful while the best is to focus on the future for a desirable life and living for coming generations.

This was the Import of the virtual conference participated by management, Students and members of the alumni association of The Federal Polytechnic Offa as well as stakeholders in offa Community to Commemorate May, 8, 2000 in the history of the Federal Polytechnic Offa and Offa Community.

The meeting which held on the telegram platform had an impressive turnout.

In his address, The lead presenter who went down memory lane submitted that the may-8 incident was not automatic but born out of uncontrollable incidents that must be forgiven and forgotten in a bid to sustained the pro-May8 initiated peace and unity.

Several speakers among whom were The Students Union Government President, Comrade Abiola Azeez Adigun, National secretary Offa descendants Union and Deen, Center for continuing Education, Dr M.B Aliyu Among others all dwelled on the need for all and Sundry to leverage on tolerance, equity and fairness regardless of tribal-religious differences.

They all Advocated for everyone to take responsibility on elevating fedpoffa to an enviable standard.

Award was thereafter presented to the paper presenter and former SUG president, Comrade Kaseem Olasupo (Kaycee)

The President of the Fedpoffa Alumni association, Mr Ayoade Adeyemi noted that palliatives have been distributed in Offa Community and environs as part of 20 years remembrance of the Fedpoffa Heroes.

He added that the National sectariat of the alumni association will be commissioned after the covid19 pandemic.

Questions and answers bothering on how  to sustain the peace and tranquility were attended to.

• Read full speech: 
• AN ADDRESS BY KAZEEM OLASUPO FORMER SUG PRESIDENT, FEDERAL POLYTECHNI OFFA, ON THE 20TH YEAR COMMEMORATION OF MAY 8TH FREEDOM DAY. 
• It is exactly twenty years after one of the most historic experiences of student struggle in our institution on the 8th May 2000 occurred. Incidentally, the world is facing yet another historic most contagious pandemic in the history of mankind in the year 2020 where nations are being ravaged; people are dying in thousands; and world economy under siege.   
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• Nevertheless, we, as students and ex-students of Federal Polytechnic Offa, have come, as we gather today, to remember May 8th 2000 as a melting point, and a rising moment for freedom, liberty, peace and justice. It is, in this regard that we remember those who paid the supreme sacrifice for our struggle on this day; those who valiantly waged and confronted the oppression; and those who suffered physical and emotional assaults and those who paid the supreme price with their lives, the likes of Muritala Kabiawu Kosoko, Emmanuel Oluwasanmi, Akinniyi Nurudeen. May the Lord Almighty grant the souls of our heroes and heroines eternal rest and glory. 
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•           TRACING OUR STEPS- MAY 8TH IN CONTEXT 
• No doubt. If we do not know where we are coming from, we would not know where we are. If we don’t know where we are we would not know where we are going. Hence, If we do not know where we are going, it is obvious that we would possibly head towards the wrong direction in our efforts to ensuring a sustainable peaceful co-existence in the polytechnic and its environs. Therefore, it imperative and instructive to briefly give  accurate account of May 8th incident. 
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•          PRE- MAY 8TH ACTIVITIES OF THE VIGILANTE GROUP 
• May 8th conflict is in no doubt marked the melting point for the extreme lawlessness and overzealousness of the vigilante group in Offa, while it is also  important to understand that students discontent was a result of an enduring years of suppression, usurpation and decimation students right, dignity and freedom suffered and experienced under the vigilante group. 
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• Between 1997 and 2000, the apparent repressive and untamed activities of the vigilante group became more pronounced. Both thestudents and the people of the community became keenly aware of the excesses of the vigilante group and their unwarranted infringement on the rights of the students and the people of the community. Reports of verbal and physical assaults against the students which sometimes left them with grave bodily harm became a regular order. 
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• For example, in 1997, Femi Oni, a student of the polytechnic was attacked and murdered around Afelele area and was buried at the cemetery near old ‘Okin-in’. 
• Vigilante group regularly raided students houses and during one of their attacks, a student Wale Fajembola was beaten and left partially blind. All efforts to get him compensated by paying for an eye surgery was abortive. 
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• Vigilante group assumed all the unheard-of responsibilities of wading into issues between couples in the community, between students, invigilating examinations on campus and involvement in the polytechnic internal political contests and electioneering processes.  
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• Also, during the year 2000 students union election, a meeting of the two most prominent students’ political groups ( Liberation Movement and Winning team) was called at Idi-ogun garage by the vigilante group asking the 2 groups to jettison the idea of an election and allocate offices to one another. This was viewed by me and my colleagues in that meeting as an undemocratic proposition and was rejected. This obviously did not go down well with the vigilante group. 
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• The group later became potent for the enrolment of young people with illicit intention to show their relevance and appetite for highhandedness. The group’s act of violence and excessiveness towards the students continued to exacerbate the living situation of the students. This was in no doubt, entrenched a contradiction and a surreptitious decline in the relationship between the students and community which had hitherto been cordial. My discussions with some of the elites within the community revealed that the issue was also becoming a concern to them at this point. 
• On my assumption of office as the Students Union President, the foundational strategy of the Union was to bring back a learning environment where intellectual growth is encouraged. This made the focal point of the union activities to be the following: 
• • Rid the campus of internal and external fears (fear of being failed without the purchase of handouts and textbooks, fear of being persecuted for intellectual engagement with the polytechnic authority, fear of writing examination under duress and supervision of the vigilante group and the fear unleashed on the students and the community by violent cult activities. 
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• • Balance the administrative power on campus by offering the students a genuine representation in affairs that affect them, their learning conditions, and broader social issues. 
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• • Peace building project (rebuilding the trust of the students in the host community, foster a peaceful co-existence within and outside of the campus by delinking the activities of the vigilante group from the accommodating nature of our respected fathers and mothers in the host community.  
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• • Lay a good foundation where continuity of students’ unionism will be sustained without proscription thereby create a common voice for the students and eschew a vacuum that will allow the growth of occultic activities on Campus as it has happened in the past. 
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• In achieving the above, we initiated a dialogue with the school management to ban the sales of handouts and compulsion of textbooks. 
• We insisted for a representation of the students in the polytechnic students’ disciplinary committee. 
• We set up an internal intelligence gathering mechanism into the activities of the cult groups and vigilante group and work closely with the security organizations on campus (Man O’ war etc). 
• We wrote a letter to Offa Descendant Union (ODU), the Olofa of Offa, Chief Emmanuel Adesoye both of blessed memory, on the need to regulate the activities of the Vigilante group and create a two way communication system between the community and the students. 
• Our letter did not receive the required attention and was viewed as an attempt by us to meddle into the community affairs. Hence, we instigated a letter to Federal Ministry of Education, State Security Service, the Governor of Kwara state and the Director of Student’s Affairs, Mr Okonta also of blessed memory. Letter was titled ‘Offa on a keg of gun powder’ detailing our assessed imminent danger in the community. 
• The response to this letter culminated into a joint meeting to be held the 8th of May between the representative of the community and the representative of the students. The Essa of Offa Chief Yunusa Bukoye was to represent the Olofa in this meeting. Ironically, this was the same day of the unfortunate incident that we all gather here to commemorate today. 
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•                                   MAIN INCIDENT ON THE 8TH DAY OF MAY 2000. 
• On this day, a female student was hit by a broken-down taxi, as expected she complained about this and an argument ensued between her and the men who were pushing the vehicle. One would have expected an apology to the lady but being the usual praxes of members of the vigilante group she was beaten up and her clothes was ripped without an iota of respect for the dignity of a woman. The lady escaped the scene and ran towards the house of the Students’ Union Sports Director, Kehinde Aiyelabegan who was leaving nearby. As Kehinde tried to save this lady from these men who were evidently unleashing a disproportionate attack on the lady, he was also beaten up and this was when the conflict escalates. The news got to other SUG executive members, we immediately moved to the scene where students have already gathered in their numbers. I addressed the students at scene and immediately moved to Owode police station and Olofa’s palace. On the way back to the campus at the Idi-ogun garage a group of vigilante boys had gathered there throwing stone and bottles at us. We managed the situation and successfully moved the students back to the campus and dispersed them to go about their normal activities having successfully registered our displeasure over the incident to the police. We then went into our pre-scheduled meeting with the Essa of Offa, Chief Bukoye. It was during the meeting that the report came to us that the vigilante group has been attacking the students in an attempt, to invade the campus. Meeting aborted at this point and we organized our effort to resist the invasion of the campus. 
• Campus invaded by the vigilante, cars belonging to the polytechnic authority and the staff burnt, students maimed and killed. Most Students made their ways to Erin-ile where assistance was provided by the community and Oba Elerin of Erin-Ile and those students who were still within the Offa community were also shielded away from the vigilante by the people of Offa. 
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•             IMMEDIATE, REMOTE AND THE ROOT CAUSES OF MAY 8TH CRISIS. 
• As we have read from the narration of event above, it is no doubt that the immediate cause of the incident is the avoidable unapologetic injury to the female student, but our focus here today would encompass the remote and the root causes so that we can draw some learnings for our current and future collective efforts to a sustainable peace. 
• From the very batch of students admitted into Federal Polytechnic Offa in 1992, I cannot but applaud the accommodating nature of the host community, Offa, and the surrounding towns. Students were well received and the good nature of the people of the community were exemplified in their relationship with the students and regular prayers for the students (notable prayers: Esorire,  Ejade ayo). It was an environment any student would wish to be part of. However, this relationship was beginning to get marred by 1994 after the proscription of the first Student’s Union headed by Lamidi Adekola. Please, permit me to highlight the following factors as the remote and root causes of May 8th incident. 
• Lack of Student-led representative: The incursion of military dictatorship into Nigerian polity was decimating to Students’ Unionism on campuses. As students across the nation continued to organize against socio-economic injustices in the society, the military and their civil elites shifted their focus to students polity on campuses and proscription, expulsion and suspension became the praxes of many higher institutions authorities at the behest of the military government. Federal Polytechnic Offa is not immune from this larger decadence. 
• By 1994/95 the population of the students had increased and became more diverse. However, there was no elected representative of the students to discuss their concerns and yearnings. The proscription of the students ‘union in 1994 and repression of all subsequent efforts to resurrect the Union in 1996 created a fertile ground for cult group and other violent group to germinate and flourish, as you know that human nature is intolerable of a vacuum. It will be filled one way or the other. The rife of cult activities in the absence of a genuinely elected Student’s union gave rise to a new communal effort to increase local security outfit in the community, this marks the rise of the vigilante group. 
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• Irresponsibility of the government and the police: From the history of event narrated above, you will notice that the vigilante group which started as a genuine effort to providing security for the community later metamorphosed into a very thick, barbaric, violent and repressive group. The untamed activities of the vigilante group remained unchecked for years and this made them to be more nuancedly horrible than the campus cult groups. The dishonesty in the operation of the vigilante fuelled more cult clashes ever as they continue to be more protective of any cult group or members in their good book against the other. To my dismay, this was opaque to the knowledge of some of the elites in the community. Sadly, the lacunar created by the inability of the Nigerian states and her security apparatus to provide adequate security for the community and the polytechnic was filled by the vigilante group at the detriment of the community and the students. 
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• Cultural Identity clash: As the student’s population continued to increase it became evident that the existing values, norms, and culture of the Offa community are getting challenged and contradicted by the diversity presented by the upsurge in students’ population. Though the student population significantly improve the economic activities in the community, the preparedness of the community leaders for the cons was questionable. It became apparent that a pragmatic plan and strategy to deal with this new community of heterogenous and diverse population were no-existence or at the very least, inadequate and overstretched.  
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• Poor Infrastructure: Lack of privacy whether due to space or intolerable disposition to diverse value is a catalyst for a conflict. Large population of students are confined into a small Old Olalomi Comprehensive high school which is now the polytechnic mini campus. It was evident that the available infrastructure for learning and accommodation were inadequate. The evidence of this ranges from crowded lecture rooms and living houses within the community. However, this can be associated with mismanagement of resources and broadly, lack of funding by the Federal Military Government which left the Polytechnic authority with no other choice than to increase its IGR through mass-admission exercise. 
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• Poor Communication: Communication between the 3 major stake holders, the Polytechnic community, the students, and the host community were defragmented and characterised with dishonesty and sycophancy. The information fed to the school management by the vigilante group about the conduct of students within the community were  exaggerated and sometimes  fabricated to get more fund from the polytechnic authority. Lack of involvement of students in the feed back mechanism and the lack of transparency in the directorate of students’ affairs over the year preceding May 8th undermines student condition and led to disengagement of students with the polytechnic establishment. 
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• CONLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION 
• You will all agree with me that the inference from our experience of the past is that the absence of a dissenting view and repression of youthful minds and brain is not synonymous to peace in an academia and any civilized society. Peace can only be achieved and sustained through a more tolerance of divergent opinion, intellectual debate, engagement, and collaboration with all the stakeholders, a deliberate Investment in 3-way feedback and a clear communication system. 
• And Lastly, a careful attention to the student’s conditions of learning, a pro-active inclusion plan, promotion of justice and equity, and mutual respect for stakeholder’s identity are essentials of fairness and peaceful co-existence. Let us continue to work on the love and the opportunity for peace that  May 8th has offered us, please continues to build on it.
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• Thank you very much