Human rights activist and publisher of Sahara Reporters, Omoyele Sowore, was on Wednesday denied entry into the University of Abuja despite being officially invited by the Students’ Union Government (SUG) for an interactive session with students.
Sowore, who shared a video of the incident on his X (formerly Twitter) handle, said he arrived on campus following an invitation from the SUG President, Comrade Yusuf Tobi Jamiu, but was stopped at the university gate by security personnel.
According to him, the SUG had earlier organised a session tagged “Interactive Forum with Students”, but the university authorities allegedly cancelled the event shortly before his arrival.
“I came straight from the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport to the University of Abuja. My advance team had noticed something was wrong they couldn’t find the SUG president, and the hall looked deserted,” Sowore said.
“Soon, one of them told me the university authorities had cancelled the programme. Later, the SUG president called to say the event would still hold. But when I got to the gate, campus security stopped me, saying the management had declared my visit unacceptable.”
Sowore said the security personnel claimed the Students’ Union had no approval from the university management to host him.
In protest, he refused to leave immediately and sat by the school gate, where he witnessed a separate incident involving a female student being denied entry for what security officials described as “improper dressing.”
“When I asked if the university bought clothes for its students, the confused security men eventually let her in, perhaps to avoid a scene,” Sowore narrated.
Moments later, Comrade Jamiu arrived at the gate to apologise, appearing, according to Sowore, “helpless.”
“I couldn’t help but wonder whether he had been elected to lead or to kneel, to represent the students or to appease the authorities,” he added.
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Describing the experience as symbolic of the “death of courage and independence” in Nigerian universities, Sowore said what he witnessed at the institution was disheartening.
“What I saw at the University of Abuja was not an institution of learning but a graveyard of courage and ideas. Our universities are not dying for lack of resources but for lack of integrity, independence, and freedom,” he said.
He concluded by lamenting that Nigerian universities had lost their voice, saying, “They are dead. What remains is the struggle to resurrect them.”
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