By Odih Daniel Nuhu.
Between 2021 and 2022, the revolutionary, forward-thinking, and prescient Rector of the Kogi State Polytechnic, Lokoja, Professor Salisu Ogbo Usman, placed a ban on the students’ sign out ritual on the Campus of the Kogi State Polytechnic, Lokoja in an attempt to stave off insecurity on the Campus. The celebration was pushed to the outer part of the Polytechnic Gate in an attempt to not paint a picture of the Rector casting a shadow of resentment upon the students’ final festivity. But in 2025, the Rector completely annihilated the programmes from every land belonging to the Polytechnic, considering its triviality and inanity. The students took their absurdity to the stark glare of the general public in town. That exposed the needless and an unbridled profligacy of the students to the outer world, the ill the Rector tried to fight off with all blood and brine.
The fact is, majority of the students who struggled in class with academic works, and who in most cases did not attend classes celebrated the sign out more with plenty of spill-over courses trailing them; they were the ones that paraded more picture frames, more bottles of wine, and more money bouquets than those who were truly academically sound. In fact, students prepared more for sign-out programme than they did for their final examination. As a teacher with firsthand contact with many final-year classes and students, majority of them abandoned tests and continuous assessments –given a choice between trifles and solemn academic programmes.
The Kogi State Government’s decision, through the Commissioner for Education, to ban the students’ ‘sign out’ programme in the state, corroborating Professor Usman’s decision, remains one of the most decisive policies within living memory by the State Government to restore sanity and academic focus in all the higher institutions in the state. The policy has proved that sign out programme imperils students’ future and carries in its trail a huge chunk of distraction, social excess, rat race, financial extravagance, and an unhealthy moral practice.
While the ban on the ‘sign out’ programme by the State Government is commendable, it is only a scratch on the surface of the solution. The Final Year Brethren (FYB) programme, which often precedes the sign-out activities, equally deserves a more serious examination. When I was a university student, FYB was reserved exclusively for church or other religious programmes in honour of final year students. Different religious denominations designed programmes that suit their final year students, ranging from encouragement and edifying sermons to the advice on the life after campus. The programmes would often climax with thanksgiving by the final year brethren and sistren (the old English words for brothers and sisters). It was purely a religious, and not a social activity. Today, the FYB programme on the campus of many higher institutions in Kogi State has been given different colouring, and it has transmogrified into some form of ugly distraction during critical academic periods.
In one of the tests that I conducted involving a class of final year students, some of the students deliberately stayed away from the test, and channelled their time, energy, and resources into the FYB events. At a time when undivided concentration was required to ensure academic success, many of them prioritized the glamour of FYB over the actual purpose of their being in school. This misplaced priority unavoidably affects performance, as most of the students invest less effort in preparing for tests during the FYB period, and more in preparing for outings and dressing.
What I want every school administration and the Kogi State Government to understand is that the excesses that accompany FYB programmes mirror those of the sign out events sans bottles of wine and photo frames. I need no conjecture with the precision of a necromancer to predict that the ban on the sign out programme will give a vivacious life to the FYB idiocy, as all the attention will be channelled toward making it more colourful and more competitively taunting, malicious or patronizing. The security concerns of many school leaders on the campuses of many institutions of higher learning in Kogi State will take a new dimension, as the FYB programmes will undermine the institutions’ reputation and contradict the academic values that should define the higher education environment.
The responsibility of the Government and many schools’ management should go beyond banning one disruptive tradition while allowing another to live unscathed. If the intention behind the sign out ban is to promote discipline, academic concentration, and institutional dignity, then it follows logically that the FYB programme must also be brought under the same chopping board. In fact, it is safe to say that the FYB culture has always been a prelude to the banned ‘sign out’ activities. The unchecked continuation of FYB celebrations will make the sign out ban only partial bandage on the sore of a wounded man, as both programmes are interlinked and fuel the same culture of distraction, extravagance, denigration, and rat-race.
Professor Usman of the Kogi State Polytechnic, Lokoja has already demonstrated the courage to take bold decisions for the sake of institutional order and students’ long-term benefit, extending the ban to include FYB activities not only by the Polytechnic but also by all other institutions of higher learning in Kogi State will stymie every form of distractions, and create a more agreeable atmosphere for serious academic activities. Final-year students deserve to graduate with fond memories, but these memories should be built on the platter of academic excellence and responsible celebration always with family and friends in a more isolated or religious set-up, and not on distraction and misplaced priorities on the academic area of the campus of higher learning.
– Odih Daniel Nuhu writes from Lokoja.
