_Standard Daily Press Editorial_
WHILE the hallowed grounds of the University of Benin (UNIBEN) should serve as a sanctuary for intellectual pursuit, they have instead morphed into a macabre theater of blood, cutlasses, and unchecked savagery.
As students are hunted like game in broad daylight and the echoes of gunfire become as common as lecture bells, the institution’s leadership has not just failed—it has effectively vanished.
At the center of this administrative vacuum stands Professor Edoba Omoregie, a Vice-Chancellor whose tenure, though young, is already defined by a chilling cocktail of arrogance, absenteeism, and an apparent obsession with the 2028 Edo State Governorship race over the safety of his own students.
The Prophet and the Palace
Yesterday,the resignation of Venerable Egbenusi Osazee David, Chairman of the Cult Renunciation and Reconciliation Committee (CR4IC), served as the final warning shot. The Chaplain didn’t just quit; he exposed a rot that starts at the top. He spoke of ignored proposals and institutional paralysis.
But the truly scorched-earth revelation was the VC’s alleged threat to evict a man of God from his vicarage—not for incompetence, but for the “sin” of refusing to delete video evidence of a shooting at the university’s main gate.
When a Vice-Chancellor is more concerned with digital optics and “pulling down” videos than with pulling down the structures of cultism, the mandate of leadership is dead.
The Absentee Landlord of Ugbowo
Since his controversial selection—a process dogged by whispers of “merit-last” interview rankings and high-level leverage as legal counsel to the Benin Monarch—Omoregie has governed as an absentee landlord.
While the campus burns, the VC is rumored to be busy traversing the political corridors of the state, eye fixed firmly on the 2028 gubernatorial prize.
This is not leadership; it is a heist. To hold the office of VC while moonlighting as a political aspirant is to treat the lives of UNIBEN students as collateral damage for personal ambition.
The anarchy described by student union leaders—of gunmen chasing peers with cutlasses while security stands impotent—is the direct result of a commander-in-chief who has abandoned his post.
A Call for Surgical Intervention
The University of Benin is currently a rudderless ship in a storm of violence. The administration’s priorities have inverted: transparency is punished, security is a myth, and the Vice-Chancellor’s office has become a launchpad for political vanity, Standarddailypress.com gathered.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as the Visitor to the University, must act with surgical precision. The institution cannot wait until 2028 for Omoregie to find his way back to his desk—or out of it. If the University of Benin is to know peace, the “Palace VC” must be relieved of his duties before the blood on the campus grounds becomes an indelible stain on the federal government’s commitment to education.
UNIBEN needs a Vice-Chancellor, not a candidate. It needs security, not threats of eviction. Most of all, it needs a leader who values the lives of his students more than the prestige of a future campaign poster.
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