The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ibadan, Idowu Olayinka has expressed his fears about the return of students’ unionism linking it to the destabilising effect it has had on the academic calendar at the 71 year-old institution. In a lengthy Facebook post on Saturday, the Professor of Geology highlighted reasons behind the suspension of the Students’ Union hinging it mainly to that. Although no name was mentioned, EduCeleb.com can report that he also justified the rustication of the last SU leader, Ojo Aderemi. He explained that despite entreaties to the then leader of the students who was referred to as 200 level, Aderemi went on to “disrupt” activities on the campus in 2017 over the non-issuance of identity cards to students. According to him, things had turned out peaceful with students ever since then. “We have been having relative peace with student activism ever since the suspension of Union activities at the end of May 2017,” he wrote. The Vice-Chancellor was however silent on whether any punishment was meted out to the school official who did not produce the cards. Professor Olayinka said he was reacting to a WhatsApp message he received charging him to restore the unionism. EduCeleb.com had reported several times of how the UI has maintained a constant show on numerous global rankings of universities as a representative of Nigeria on such lists. Olayinka expressed concerns that the constant disruption of the academic calendar as a result of school closure would amount to demarketing the University. In his words, “I have a responsibility to ensure a stable academic calendar. By doing this, I am indirectly saving the vast majority of our students, who want to complete their degree programmes in good time and move on with other challenges of life, from the hands of those who are committed to demarketing the University by their actions that lead to incessant closure of our great citadel of learning.” Read the full content below. I received a WhatsApp message overnight from a student of the University of Ibadan asking for restoration of the Students’ Union. My lengthy response to him is given below. I have no personal problem about restoring your Union. I am being honest with you here. The problem I have is the disruptive nature of your Union and this has a very long history. I was an undergraduate at the University of Ibadan for four sessions, 1977 till 1981. To that extent one has the privilege to give some sort of eye-witness account. During the 1977/1978 session, Tayo Ilupeju (now of blessed memory) was so popular among the entire student body that he was elected unopposed as President of the Students’ Union at the University of Ibadan. That was the era of the (in)famous ‘Ali must go’ nationwide protest by students. Colonel Dr Ahmadu Ali (an Ibadan Alumnus) was then the Federal Commissioner (Minister) of Education. The protest then was centred around the attempt by the Federal Military Government under General Olusegun Obasanjo as Head of State to remove our meal subsidy. Invariably, all members of the Students’ Union Executive led by Tayo Ilupeju were rusticated. The same scenario repeated itself during the 1978/79 Session, whereby all members of the Student Union Executive were rusticated. I cannot now remember the name of the then President of our Students’ Union. It may be pointed out that the two Presidents of the University of Ibadan Student Union Executive for 1977/78 and 1978/79, respectively, did not return to the institution after serving out their one year rustication. Hence they never earned an Ibadan degree. So unfortunate indeed. I remember that the vast majority of the student body lost interest in student unionism and we decided to boycott elections into the Students’ Union during the next Session, 1979/1980. Less than 5% of the eligible students turned out to vote eventually and they were elected albeit highly unpopular. We referred to those Executive Members of the Union for that session pejoratively as the ”Puppet Executive” on account of lacking legitimacy. Then after this short break, majority of the students again took active part in the election of the Students’ Union for the 1980/81 Session by which time I was in my final year. All members of the Executive led by my brother and kinsman, Femi Falana, of the Department of Political Science, as President, were eventually rusticated by the University. Femi Falana in his own case, served out his one year rustication and returned to the University of Ibadan during the 1982/83 session to continue his academic pursuits. He contested again for the position of President of the Students’ Union and he was re-elected massively.