Once a Zikite is not Always a Zikite

Sometimes late last week the Hall Management of Ransome Kuti Hall released a circular proscribing “indecent, offensive and grossly improper hairstyles among students of the hall”. The reactions that trailed this regulation ranged from snide remarks like, it can never be my hall, to deeper contemplation of the propriety of the rule with questions as, should the hairstyles of students be the business of the hall management? In any case, the Kuti hall rule on hairstyle tells us one thing, the hall management, and broader, the school management can prescribe rules regulating students’ conduct.

Maybe Zik Hall’s Management will not ask you to skin your head or clampdown on hairstyles but it is prudent to remember that even in Zik hall rules obtain with attached penalties that will force you to rethink the worth of perpetrating certain thoughtless acts. According to the University of Ibadan’s Ethics Governing Halls of Residence certain proscribed acts are identified like; fighting, indecent dressing, littering of premises, buying and selling of bed spaces, operating business in the room, playing loud music constituting nuisance, cooking in the room, smoking, substance use, drinking alcohol, illegally tampering with electrical fittings, even sleeping in the reading rooms among others.

These acts attract punishments from mild ones like reprimands to serious sanctions like eviction and expulsion. And if you doubt the existence of these rules I’d remind you of a time when you were completing your hall registration as a fresher. When you were given a copy of the ethics book and you had to sign a tenancy agreement form which you submitted to the porters. Like the word of God, it can stand against you in the day of SDC.

Consider an alarming situation where a Zikite confronts a trader within Zik hall on a disagreement relating to fake money or what not. The argument gets heated, the Zikite is provoked and in the heat of the moment loses control. Before you say baba Azikiwe he picks up a machete, brandishes it and threatens to use it on the trader. Fortunately, he is restrained. When he comes to himself he begins to prostrate and beg, giving the wanting excuse that his eyes were clouded at the time. Perhaps he is pardoned, seriously reprimanded and the case is closed. But what happens in an alternate reality?

What if this Zikite had, in a fit of blind rage, used the machete and inflicted grievous bodily harm on the trader? Now he has a corpse on his hands, the witness against him is overwhelming, he is whisked away, not to Abefele’s station but to the grim ambience of a real Nigerian police station he only hears about in the news. He is charged with murder, his parents broken and inconsolable, his future dashed. He can forget worrying about classes, assignments, a degree, hustling, sapa, shege, breakfast and other fiddling worries of the average student and only look forward to a life behind bars.

And this can be you! But before you pray God forbid or mentally dismiss the possibility, know that matters can escalate quickly and emotions can run amok. So, remember the rules; one recklessness, one outburst, one fit of anger can end your studentship and drastically alter your life’s trajectory. Once a Zikite is not always a Zikite!   

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