By: Emelife Uc
Becoming the most peaceful university in Nigeria requires that you make peace your number one priority. This is because the standard of a higher institution is neither determined by her academic excellence nor the beauty of her structures, it is solely on the grounds of peace. How peaceful is the university? How much a haven is it for her students?
The average university is a war zone and no one really cares about how well-equipped your labs are or how poor your library is or how impoverished your structures are. Nobody cares about these things. So if you’re looking to be ranked better, from the rare or front, doesn’t matter, the aim of your university should not be to school, but to provide a safe haven. This peace, however, must only be relative at face-value. And maintaining face-value peace may be a herculean task, but what am I here for if not to make things easier for you? Here are ten (10) easy, tested and trusted guidelines on how to maintain face-value peace:
1. Print out a thousand flyers with the name of your institution (say “Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto”) boldly written on them.
Right below the name should be the prophetic claim that you’re actually “The Most Peaceful University In Nigeria”.
2. Paste it on every nook and cranny of your institution.
If you crave greater peace, make a billboard out of it and mount it on every major students’ hangout site.
3. Command your minions, sorry students, to proclaim the label in arguments.
When your students get into arguments with students from other institutions, while those students proudly make submissions over little accolades like having the best medical school or being among the top 50 universities in the world, tell yours to not feel inferior. They have the best quality any institution can offer. Peace.
So tell them to say, “My university may be awful in every other thing, our lecture halls may not be properly ventilated, and our hostels are homes to mosquitoes, but we are the most peaceful university in Nigeria.” Then they should doff their hats, flip their hair for the females, and slyly walk out like winners that they are.
4. Instruct your staff to turn it to a mantra.
When they come in to class, they should greet the students this way: “Good morning students and welcome to the most peaceful university in Nigeria”. And they should repeat it for at least seven times all through the two-hour lecture, because peace when perpetually spoken into existence becomes reality.
5. Make it your institution’s slogan. Forget the “Better by Far” that others use. What way are they better? Because they’ve more equipped labs and spacious lecture theatres? Because they have more versed and competent lecturers? What’re all those compared to what you have? (Okay, you don’t really have it yet, so rather, what I’m showing you how to have.) Peace is underrated if you ask me.
6. Misplace your priorities.
Yes, you read that right. Misplace your priorities. You’ve got the Nigerian government to look up to as your model administration. For instance, tell your security men to abandon the whole foolhardy agenda of protecting lives and property. After all, we are all living to die someday or as Soyinka aptly captured it: “…dying by instalments”, and these properties will not follow us to the beyond. So tell them not to worry about safeguarding the institution, and to instead invest the energy in harassing students who dress indecently. If you ask me, the killings in Nigeria today is as a result of indecent dressing. So you’re doing humanity a favour.
7. Be reluctant about security since you have no cultists.
You’re trying to become the most peaceful university in Nigeria and you’re lucky that there are no cult groups. What’s more to do than to develop a reluctance towards security? That aside, what is even the relationship between security and peace? You can be peaceful and still have poor security measures. Lucifer won’t judge you.
8. Be indifferent to security breaches.
Again, we are all living to die. If God has destined that, on a particular day, some of your students will be attacked by armed masked men, or vehicles get stolen, accept it in good fate. Fold your arms and say nothing about it. If they have a problem with it, they should take it up with God. Your duty is to ensure peace and that is exactly what you’ve done with the adoption of the previous steps.
9. Have a sycophantic Student Union.
Very important. Ensure that the leaders of your SU are sycophants. Their badly written press releases must speak well of the institution, and if there is tension amongst students over several security breaches, instruct them to make a statement that debunks obvious and factual happenings. You’re a lover of peace, a little die (sorry, lie) don’t hurt nobody.
10. Tell your lead security personnel to publicly declare his incompetence.
It is the 21st century, and there are some hyperactive students who parade themselves as campus journalists. Beware of this kind. They will pester you for interviews and insist even after turning them down. When you grow weary of the disturbance and choose to do their bidding, instruct your ‘Maiguard’ to declare his incompetence when asked about the security of the institution. Tell him to say things like, “Security is your personal responsibility” and go further to advise students to not walk alone at night. Ensure he doesn’t reveal a single security measure put up to curb insecurity, because there actually is none, and you don’t support lying because honesty is one of the ways of ensuring peace.
The above steps have been adopted by a federal university near you, and there is no gainsaying reminding you that indeed it is now ranked as the most peaceful university in Nigeria.
Emelife Uc is a 200 Level student of Literature in English. He is also a campus journalist and a literary enthusiast.
