LASU Students Are Way Too Calm

Sọrọ soke, LASUites — nobody will beat you

Years ago, during a casual argument, my friend Munnir insisted that Nigerians’ habit of readily adapting to bad governance is what enables it. He believed this adaptation hinders accountability on the leaders’ part, but I didn’t. I argued that such resilience was commendable and that it was wise to call out a hostile system while adapting to survive in it. But after watching myself and other students navigate the past three semesters at LASU, I’m starting to suspect he may have been right.

Our reactions to certain ills during the recently concluded semester are what prompted this essay. Not that this is the first time we would react that way. There have been earlier instances where “accepting reality” was the immediate popular response, even when it was clearly the wrong one. It seems pertinent to talk about some of them here before discussing the more recent ones.

The 106 “Breakfast” Special

Half a loaf might be better than none if you begged for a loaf. But if you paid for one in full, settling for less should not be an option. Yet that was what happened in late August 2025, when many first-year students who sat a test suspected their scripts had been graded incorrectly. I was one of them. According to my returned script, I had scored eighteen out of thirty when I was expecting thirty.

I was confident about my expected score because the lecturer had read out the questions during the test, and I knew the answers before he even began listing the options. Because the number of complaints was too large to ignore, our course representative informed him. The lecturer, however, dismissed our complaints as the usual protests of unprepared students and warned that the issue not be raised again.

As I was having none of that, I raised a discussion among my classmates about what to do next, but most were content with their scores, even if begrudgingly. One even told me I was being greedy and ungrateful for contesting a whole eighteen marks! “What about those who had scored eight or nine?” she asked. “What are they to do?”

I remember thinking how strange it was to be asked to feel grateful that only a few marks had been stolen from me. Even stranger was her failure to realise that doing something about it was the only way those who had scored eight or nine could get their actual scores recorded.

I reached out to other affected students within and outside my department and compared their scripts to mine. It wasn’t long before I noticed some patterns:

• Every affected student had taken the first of the two batches of the test.
• Of the ten questions we answered, numbers six to nine were consistently graded incorrectly.

When I learnt our course representative had taken the second batch and was thus unaffected, I worried he might not pursue the matter with the same urgency that we felt. So, I sent the lecturer a long, polite message, along with photo evidence of the discrepancies between our scripts and his lecture notes. He scheduled a meeting with me for the following Monday.

I decided to inform only a few students about this development because some had already warned me not to push the issue any further. They swore they wouldn’t take it lightly with me if the lecturer decided to penalise our class for what they considered hubris on my part.

Interestingly, that Monday, the lecturer also warned that further marks would be deducted from my already “low” eighteen marks if I couldn’t prove there was a mistake in the grading. The review process was taxing and time-consuming, but I managed to prove the mistake in the end.

As a result, not only was my score corrected (I did score thirty), but all scripts for the first batch were recalled and reevaluated. The ironic part of it all was getting thanked immensely by several students who had earlier advised me to let it go.

Punishment for Late Payment of Tuition Fees Is… a Carryover?

For all its ills, one merit I genuinely appreciate about LASU is its tuition payment system. Students may either pay in full or in instalments: 70% in the first semester and 30% in the second. I don’t know how many Nigerian universities offer this option, but I know a couple that don’t.

In LASU, students have until the deadline for course registration to pay their tuition fees, which is typically about eight weeks. The portal is usually reopened two weeks after that deadline for students who wish to add or delete courses. Unless a student has partly or fully paid their tuition, they can’t register for any course. And if they fail to register for a course they’re required to take, they won’t be able to sit the exam, which results in a carryover.

For students who pay 70% in the first semester, the second semester—like last semester—is when the balance is due. Last semester, for various reasons, many students waited until the final days of the registration window before attempting to register for their courses. I knew several people whose reason was that they hadn’t yet raised the money to balance their tuition.

In the final week of course registration, we discovered that LIT 102, one of our compulsory courses, was no longer available on the portal. Instead, ENG 124, the course’s former code, was registerable. Knowing that the portal would be reopened, most affected students chose to wait with the hope that the issue would have been resolved by then. Although I wasn’t affected, I urged those who were to inform the university’s ICT department, as I was convinced they weren’t aware of the issue, contrary to popular belief.

By the time the portal was reopened for adding or deleting courses, the issue still hadn’t been resolved. Again, I urged those concerned to raise awareness, especially as exams were fast approaching. I warned that if the problem was reported too late, those in charge would insist that students should have complained earlier. Instead of contacting the ICT department, however, many affected students preferred to register for ENG 124, since it was available. Their theory was that they should be able to sit the exam since it bore the same course title as LIT 102 and was technically the same course.

One affected friend shared my concern, and together we reached out to other students who were willing to take action. We created a WhatsApp group of about ninety students and drafted a letter to the ICT department. However, I was informed that the head of the department refused to sign it. His reason was that students’ inability to register for the correct course was a fitting punishment for waiting until the last minute to complete their course registration. He also reportedly wondered why those who didn’t register for ENG 124 failed to do so, unlike other affected students who did.

To those who raised that question, we gave three reasons. First of all, many affected students were forced to wait until the final days because they hadn’t completed their tuition payment. Secondly, registering ENG 124, only to discover later that no exam had been prepared for it, would result in a carryover and severely hurt their GPA. By contrast, registering for neither of the two would leave only LIT 102 outstanding, without affecting their GPA, to be taken the following session. Most importantly, the registration process was still ongoing when we discovered the issue, so it would be unfair to punish students for registering late when they hadn’t.

Unfortunately, our appeals weren’t granted, not even after we reached out to the lecturer in charge of the course and the exam officer, both of whom were more sympathetic to the situation. As I predicted, students who registered for ENG 124 still weren’t able to sit the LIT 102 exam and received an F in ENG 124, a course that no longer exists. Their GPAs suffered as a result. Demoralising as the experience was, I remain convinced that it could have been averted if only the students affected had treated the issue with the seriousness it required.

Silence Is Becoming More Expensive

In “The Cost of Silence,” an essay I wrote about my first semester at LASU, I touched on how student culture on campus often involves trading fear of those in authority for safety or at least a semblance of it. Two semesters later, that hasn’t changed. If anything, things have only gotten worse, with more students choosing silence and the school handling student affairs with increasing impunity.

In the recently concluded semester, all second-year students registered for an entrepreneurial course, yet to date, most of us still don’t know who the lecturer in charge is. A few classes were later held on the university’s online radio, but many students couldn’t listen because the site kept bouncing them off. As usual, most students had to make do with whatever materials they could find and memorise them shortly before the exam just to get through it.

Something similar played out with our other online classes. At the start of the semester, the school announced that courses with over 400 students would be held online. Now, I know what you’re thinking: that sounds like a progressive technological move. The truth, however, is that this came at a time when the top three telecom providers were performing terribly, and bad reception had become the norm, even for lecturers.

Classes were thus often cancelled or postponed because either students or lecturers couldn’t join Telegram calls. Many students also missed presentations or failed to submit assignments within narrow deadlines for the same reason.

At some point, it became obvious that, much like how JAMB hastily adopted CBTs in 2013, LASU had rushed into technological “innovation” without first putting the right infrastructure in place. All the while we were asked to wait for the school’s official e-learning platform to become fully operational, students kept missing classes, presentations, and assignments.

One would think the students’ union, course representatives (a role I admittedly held this semester), or students generally would raise these issues. Or at least suggest better alternatives like slides, voice notes, or recorded videos, instead of live Telegram sessions or radio classes that many students couldn’t access, often through no fault of theirs.

One might also expect students to point out that in the previous semester, several courses with over 400 students were handled more efficiently. Even though most classrooms couldn’t accommodate everyone at once, several lectures were split into two forty-five-minute sessions. It wasn’t perfect due to the redundancy, but at least every student could attend classes.

To be fair, students did talk about all of this, just not in the right rooms. Discussions of the matter were rather isolated. Across the levels in each department, student WhatsApp groups were full of complaints and suggestions. But because none of these conversations made it to the school management, they died in those groups, and as no change was brought about, we continued to suffer in silence.

I don’t claim to fully understand why the school often behaves this way, though I’m certain that our silence is a significant enabling factor. As for why students are more silent now than ever, I think it has a lot to do with the same japa mentality that has made many Nigerians stop calling out governmental failures. The logic is pretty straightforward: if you can’t change your environment, then change your environment. Leave as soon as you can.

Even when students deny this is the case with them, it shows in their attitude. Most of us, especially from the second year upwards, have a mental clock counting down to our graduation. We are tired of how things hardly change for the better when they do change, so we resignedly look forward to the day it will all end. And when seniors who have spent longer in the system stay silent, how can any first-year student feel bold enough to be assertive about these matters?

These are the issues, and change is overdue. The integrity of the university and the quality of our education depend on it. It’s high time we stopped treating our undergraduate degree like a $500 course handed to us for free, such that we are fearfully careful not to step on anyone’s toes, lest our admission be withdrawn from us. I admit that assertiveness can attract punishment, which may be fair or not, but that shouldn’t discourage us from asserting ourselves the right way.

I should add that I’m not asking students to be disrespectful towards the school, nor am I encouraging violence of any kind. All I ask is that students be less tolerant of unfair policies and more willing to speak up, preferably with practical suggestions. After all, lecturers, heads of departments, deans, and the like are human. Their age and offices make them deserving of respect, but their policies aren’t beyond question and can benefit from input from the students directly affected by them.

That said, I do have a few suggestions I hope will receive due consideration by the school board, individual students, the students’ union, and relevant student societies, like LASU Debate Society, and campus blogs and media teams, like LASU Conscience and, perhaps, LASU Street.

1 | Students should become more assertive in their words and deeds

It isn’t enough for students to call out unfair treatment in WhatsApp groups that lecturers and decision-makers are not part of. Our frustrations need to reach the appropriate people through the appropriate channels. Admittedly, not every lecturer or unit will be open to hearing from a single student or a small group of students. Still, they are far more likely to grant an audience to course representatives, students’ union executives, or even a large group of students acting together in peaceful protest. The emphasis here is on “peaceful.”

In LASU, the idea of a peaceful protest often sounds foreign, like one of those things that work in only movies or in ideal systems but not in our reality. However, having participated in a peaceful protest at the University of Benin, I can confidently say that they do work. They are effective for making students’ voices heard and forcing the school to consider issues from the students’ perspective.

A 2014 protest by LASU students | source: The Cable

Even within LASU, peaceful protests are not unprecedented. In 2014, Yusuf Nurudeen, then president of the students’ union, led a peaceful protest against a hike in tuition fees. However, before students embark on any form of protest today, I would encourage the current students’ union executives to first seek out up-to-date guidelines for conducting such protests.

At the moment, LASU’s code of conduct page says nothing about protests. If students are to employ peaceful protests for matters deserving such a response, they should first learn the do’s and don’ts so their pleas aren’t invalidated by any misconduct.

2 | Students should be educated on their rights and limitations to their rights

If you opened the code of conduct page cited above, you might have noticed how vague some parts are. For instance, what exactly constitutes “insubordination”? If a student is warned not to pursue a complaint because they were supposedly misunderstood but persists anyway, as I did in the test score and course code incidents, does that qualify as insubordination? It would help to know.

LASU Conscience provides a fairly comprehensive list of students’ rights and privileges on its website. While it mentions students’ right to challenge grades, it says nothing about their right to quality education or what steps students may take if they believe they aren’t receiving it, whether due to missed classes or inefficient learning infrastructure. Thus, it would help if the school website created a dedicated page, or at least a clearer network of web pages, outlining students’ rights and responsibilities in practical terms.

Some of my younger classmates have suggested that the reason I find it easier to approach authorities when they might prefer to stay silent is that I have the confidence that comes with age. There is some truth to that. I wasn’t nearly as confident in 2019, during my first undergraduate experience, as I am now.

Still, confidence shouldn’t depend on age alone. If students’ rights were entrenched in the university’s governing documents and actively taught and defended by relevant bodies, especially the students’ union, more students would likely address issues respectfully and assertively. It’s easier to speak up when you know your footing is constitutional.

3 | The students’ union should be proactively invested in student affairs

Administration after administration, the Lagos State University Students’ Union (LASUSU) has been criticised for many things, but they all boil down to one complaint: it’s not as proactive about student affairs as it should be.

The current administration, Igbega LASUSU, in particular, is perhaps the most lackadaisical of the lot. It took multiple reshares of, and commentary on, a critical article by LASU Conscience before the union finally addressed the many complaints students raised earlier this semester. These include the new Library Development Fee and the Ilera-Eko Health Scheme Fee — both of which students were required to pay before they could register for their courses — and the delayed disbursement of student loans.

LASUSU needs to remember that its primary responsibility is to represent LASU students whenever the need arises. That representation should be proactive rather than reactive. Interestingly, this semester, a Google Form was created by NASELS-LASU, my department’s union, to gather student concerns within the Department of English. While we need more initiatives like this across departmental unions, we need it even more at the LASUSU level for student representation to be truly effective.

A flyer from the office of the welfare director, NASELS-LASU

Apart from collecting responses, LASUSU should also provide students with regular, transparent updates. Press releases, follow-ups, and visible actions would go a long way in showing that the union isn’t merely collecting complaints but actually presenting them before the school and pushing for solutions to our challenges.

4 | The school management should survey students after every semester

The students’ union is not the only body that could benefit from something as simple as a Google Form. The school itself, perhaps through heads of departments, could circulate a form at the end of every semester to assess students’ experiences that semester and collect complaints or suggestions for improvement. Doing so would make it easier to identify and address recurring problems.

These problems include lecturers who set exam questions based on material from specific textbooks they never mentioned or recommended in class, as well as those who rarely attend lectures or provide course outlines, yet proceed to set complex exams.

The school could then take up such matters privately with the lecturers involved to prevent a repeat in subsequent semesters.

5 | The e-learning platform should be made functional and tailored to student needs and realities

While the university refines DigiLearn, its e-learning platform, it should seriously consider incorporating asynchronous learning, much like Coursera and Udemy. This would mean recorded lectures, whether audio or video, slides with voice notes, and, of course, text-based explanations. Students should still be able to learn even if they miss a live class due to poor reception or a flat battery. After all, some areas around the university are notorious for prolonged power outages.

Lecturers should also be required to upload course outlines and other relevant materials early in the semester. There should be a forum where students can ask questions openly, and, most importantly, a functional help desk with a prompt response time to handle students’ requests for support. When combined with an end-of-semester feedback form, a well-designed e-learning platform could significantly improve learning.

6 | Relevant university societies and media teams should consistently create awareness of matters deserving of it

LASU Conscience has my respect for never shying away from amplifying student voices or calling out misconduct at any level. That said, its scope is understandably broad. Because it covers the university as a whole, department-specific issues often slip through its purview. This is where course representatives come in.

If LASU Conscience could build a loose coalition of course representatives across levels and departments, it would gain direct access to the kinds of level- or department-specific issues that rarely get public attention. Course representatives could flag concerns worth spotlighting, after which the platform could do its due diligence and decide which matters deserve coverage. That alone would significantly improve how minority students’ experiences are represented, instead of letting everything die silently at the departmental level.

LASU Debate Society also has a role to play here. It could host debates centred on actual student concerns. Topics like online vs physical vs hybrid learning or, more importantly, whether students should be allowed to see their graded scripts after exams. I think we should, if only to learn from our mistakes. Inviting decision makers to some of these debates would make them even more effective. Besides raising awareness, such forums would expose these officials to multiple perspectives, practical arguments, and real student experiences they might otherwise never consider.

Conclusion

Lagos State University boasts an iconic set of outspoken alumni, like Victory Ashaka and the late Sound Sultan. It seems contradictory to celebrate their outspokenness while maintaining a culture that discourages assertiveness among students. Even we students aren’t helping matters by accepting reality each semester—by memorising materials to pass exams and counting down to graduation.

We deserve the best that LASU has to offer. It is our responsibility to desire it as much as it is within our rights to demand it respectfully yet assertively. We owe ourselves, those sponsoring our education, and the society we hope to serve someday no less than that.

As such, the calmness and tired silence that have made us settle for less these past semesters have no place in our culture any longer. Regardless of our ages or how close we are to graduating, we ought to give these matters due attention. And it starts with a small step, even one as simple as sharing this essay to the various student groups you’re a member of.

We are LASU, we are great — or at least, with some intentional assertiveness, we could be.