Brown breaks Uniuyo Inaugural Lecture attendance record, proposes ‘CAKE’ for all Nigerians.
The 1000–capacity TETFUND Hall, which has become the home for Inaugural Lectures in the University of Uyo (Uniuyo), overflowed with ecstatic listeners,Thursday, June 26, when Prof Aniekan Samson Brown took to the stage as the 114th Inaugural lecturer of the University.
The crowd that came to listen to Prof Brown, a prolific writer, activist, labour and human rights advocate, and public orator, was such that had never been seen at the University in its 42–year history,from Unicross to Uniuyo.
His lecture, entitled,‘Crime in Nigeria: Let us all eat the Cake’ adopted a historico– anthropological and sociological approach to the evolution of the Nigerian State from pre-colonial, through colonial, independence and the post-independence era.
Brown, a professor of Criminology in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology of the university, also set another record as the first son of Uyo Local Government Area to attain this important feat.
One attendant described his experience as one akin to the Lagos State Municipal buses which Fela Anikulapo-Kuti jibed as conveying 49 passengers sitting while 99 stood.
The hall had always been seen as too large for academic activities; but this was a situation where the gown, town and crown met in a delectable way.
Prof Brown, who often doubles as a master of ceremonies in many university’s elite events, has always been a quintessential performer lacing his act with rib-cracking humour at such events, kept the audience at the edge of their seats.
At the event, he sang and made the stage look too small, even for his small frame, as he strutted from one end of it to the other to the excitement of his strung up audience, who reacted to some of his dispositions in frenzied candour.
Previous presenters simply stood by the lectern clutching the microphone in a manner that looked as if they were petrified; but Brown caressed the microphone in an alluring way and at intervals crooned some favourite Christian songs of his, an act which he rounded-off with eclat, as he conducted his church choir in their rendition of Handel’s ‘Messiah’. It was a master class performance, rich in history and uncomfortable socio-political truths.
Any day, Prof Aniekan Brown is a showman, and even his swaggering gait gives you the feeling of a man who saw tomorrow.
The theme of his lecture was anchored on his CAKE proposal, not that it offered a totally revolutionary vision of our social perception of crime, but he neatly encapsulated the policy initiatives of government in respect of crime management to include: Community, policing, discretion, use of deadly force, police brutality and domestic violence.
Against this background, he proposed the C.A.K.E. initiative as the new order which the Nigerian State should follow, noting that the acronym, CAKE, represents C= Care, A = Affection, K = Kindness and E = Empathy.
Brown concluded by asking all Nigerians to eat his CAKE as a way out of our present challenges in crime detection, social cohesion in troubled communities and maintenance of order in the general society.
