When Obafemi Awolowo University
(OAU), Ile-Ife former Student Union Government (SUG) President, Akinola Saburi
was admitted in the year 2000, he had no feeling that he would not graduate on
a record time.
His involvement in campus activism
was what held him on campus for additional eight years.All started in 2003 when
he was elected as the Secretary General of the students’ union and along the
line, he became an acting president of the union when the incumbent president,
Akinkunmi Olawoyin, was sick and could not perform his official duties again.
Saburi’s administration was said to
be in constant face-off with the school authority on issues bordering on
students’ welfare.
The union, according to investigations,
always demanded from the authority to put things like accommodation problem,
high tuition fee, overcrowded lecture rooms and hostels as well as policies
they considered oppressive in the right perspective so as to make their
studentship a worthwhile experience.
And at a time when there was no positive
response, the students embarked on protests and the management manipulated 13
of them as ring leaders including Saburi and consequently expelled them from
school.