ABSTRACT
This project paper is an in-depth study on challenges of student unionism in universities in Imo state between 1970 and 1992. It examines the relationship of students, in their unionism, to the University administration and the state. It also looks at the tactics the students used in their unionism. The objectives of this study were to explain the challenges of student unionism in universities in Imo state between 1970 and 1992, the impact of the students’ unionism and the challenges that were faced by students in their unionism. Generational revolt theory and Marxist theory were used in the study. These theories were useful in assessing the various dimensions that confrontations would take between students, on one hand, and the government and the University administration on the other. The study was conducted using secondary sources and primary sources which mainly involved fieldwork and library research.
The study argues that student unionism in universities in Imo state was caused and heightened by the opening and closing of democratic space within and outside the University.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of study
Traditionally, student unionism in Nigerian institutions of higher learning has been a product of institutional issues, national issues and indeed international issues. One of the first cases of student unionism that saw university students from the Royal College, Imo and the government violently collide was on January 27th 1969. This collision occurred when the government prevented Odinga Oginga, leader of the opposition party – Nigeria People’s Union (NPU) – from addressing students at the University Imo, Imo.7 The aftermath of this confrontation was the closure of the University on the same day, an indefinite suspension of five students and the resignation of one of the College’s lecturers, Ngozi. He resigned in protest, “outraged by the silence of most lecturers and professors” in light of the suspensions handed out to the students a few days after the university was closed. This confrontation between university students and the government, culminating in the closure of the university and expulsion of some students, created a precedent for further confrontations between the students and the government most of which were modelled on this pattern.
