Professor Lilian Salami, the outgoing Vice Chancellor of the University of Benin (UNIBEN), has shared a deeply personal and challenging experience from her tenure in her newly released memoir, So Much To Say: A Memoir. In the book, she reflects on an incident where protesting students pelted her with sachets of water and compelled her to read a prepared script aloud.
The students expressed their dissatisfaction over the institution's decision to increase the penalty for late payment of school charges from ₦10,000 to ₦20,000, a move implemented during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown. Prof. Salami detailed that the protest escalated to the point where she was abducted by the students, who forced her to walk to the university's main gate to address their grievances publicly.
She alleged that the protest as well as other protests that happened during her five years as the head of the university were masterminded and sponsored by cabals.
She averred that the decision to increase the penalty was taken by the university council, which frowned at the level of students’ school charges indebtedness needed to drive the session.
While noting that the penalty was only targeted at late payers, she added that all efforts by the Dean of Students Affairs to calm them down were to no avail.
She disclosed that the institution’s chief security officer, the police divisional officer, and the area commander visited and urged her to reverse the decision but she stood her ground.
“The students took to the expressway with musicians providing music for them and caterers cooking on the highway.
“On the third day, they had decided to abduct me, forcing me to come to the highway to address them. The DCP, DPO, as well as security officials, were in my house asking me to address the students, assuring me of my safety.
“By this time, the mob has pulled down my chain-wire fence and dragged me out of my official residence to force me to trek to the main gate.
“Somehow, some of them advised against trekking. So, I was allowed to ride in my Hilux van with students sitting on the hood, bonnet and windows.
“Guns were brandished and some were shown to me under their shirts. Finally, as I got to the main gate, I was forced to climb on the Hilux van and directed to repeat an address after one of the ring leaders, which I did.
“At that point, some pure water sachets were thrown at me. After reading the address and ensuring that the ICT unit had complied, I was let go. I was taken to the DPO’s and then to the CP’s offices. The CP later booked for my one-night stay in a hotel,” she recounted.
She alleged that the cabals seeking to discredit her administration sponsored students and members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, to protest against her.
The purpose of the protest, according to her, was to create the impression that she was inept and incapable of running the institution as a Vice Chancellor and thus compel the Federal Government to remove her.
Salami stated that the cabals who see themselves as untouchable include ex-students and contractors, among others.
“They claim that in the past, they were adequately compensated with money, with some of them on the payroll, while others got cash for unexecuted contracts. Still, others were given admission and hostel accommodation slots in place of cash.
“A couple of groups had reached out to me to be educated and initiated into the cabal groups, which I politely declined.
“These were unarguably the platforms and persons who apparently might have vowed to continuously cause unrest during the tenure of my administration,” she stated.
She also asserted that her investigation indicated that her security was compromised and that there were professors who were in constant discussion with the students to make sure that she was humiliated and influence the Federal Government to remove and replace her for lack of capacity to govern a university.
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