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Renaming UNILAG: What’s in a name?
Tuesday, 21 August 2012
In the heat of the protest by the students of the University of Lagos, a bosom friend called me from the United States and engaged me in a long discourse.
We talked extensively about life in his new university and he told me the story of how he got a scholarship into A & M which is the second best university in Texas, as a transfer student from the University of Lagos. According to him, he said he called the administration office, from Rhodes Island and immediately he mentioned the University of Lagos, the American answering the call replied ‘Nigeria!’.
As an opponent of this change in name, I have been confronted with the question, “What is in a name?” However, my usual response is, the question of what is in a name answers itself. Why renaming, if there is nothing in a name?
Do we rename Nigeria because the origin of the name is ambiguous? Or is it because it is a mere description of the region of the Niger by Floral Shaw, the British journalist?
Do we rename Lagos because it means lagoon in Portuguese and it was the sales point of slaves?
The University of Lagos is an institution and a global brand estbalished for the emancipation of the minds of the people.
I heard about MKO Abiola on July 8 1998, for the very first time. I could still recollect that incidence vividly, with my embroyonic mind though I was eight years old on that particular day, there was so much noise and my parents attention was glued to the TV in our living room. There was a breaking news on the death of Abiola and I enquired from my parents and my mother told me his story with teary eyes.
The approach which the president used in remaining University of Lagos to Moshood Abiola University, the “presumed winner of 1993 election in his words”is a fire brigade approach. Then I ask, should anyone be honoured based on presumption?
•Mubarak Onyibe-Akenzua,
Lagos.
Lagos State.
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