Foremost Nigerian Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has condemned the invasion of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Osun State, by indigenes of the town on Monday, following the appointment of a new Vice Chancellor who is not a native of the town, saying those who invaded the institution with charms “must have been crazy.”
Africa News Watch had reported how the townspeople who were not happy that a non-indigene, Professor Adebayo Bamire, was announced as the 12th substantive VC of the foremost institution, had invaded the school’s main campus to register their displeasure.
The protesters had stormed the school with charms, amulets and other fetish objects to insist that an Ile-Ife indigene should have been appointed the VC following the announcement of Bamire.
They had insisted that an indigene of Ile-Ife, Prof Rufus Adedoyin, should be installed instead, but according to the institution’s Joint Council and Senate Selection Board in a statement on their position, Prof. Adedoyin who was also in the running during the selection process, came ninth in the screening exercise which saw sixteen candidates shortlisted for the post.
Soyinka, himself an alumnus and former lecturer of OAU, decried the invasion which he described as not only “shocking and disgusting” but “crazy.”
Soyinka, who spoke on the incident while delivering a lecture titled, ‘The Politics of Black Intellection and Creativity,’ at the University of Pennsylvania on Thursday, expressed distaste over the unholy act, wondering why no intelligent indigene of the town had come out to disown the protesters.
While reacting to a question by one of the panelist, Professor Wale Adebanwi, a Presidential Penn Compact Professor of African Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, the Professor of English said it was absurd for the people to insist that the OAU VC must be an indigene of the town.
“An Ife person wrote me and say, look at these people disgracing us. I told him to go there and disgrace them. You are an Ife person. You should be in the front line,” the erudite professor said.
“The Ife people should say those people don’t belong to us, we don’t know where they came from. And they should be dealt with ruthlessly. Why should there be an Ife VC anywhere? I just don’t understand what they put in the water these days. It is crazy,” he added.