An Eastern Cape-born University of Johannesburg [UJ] student set tongues wagging on Tuesday night when he confronted the dean of humanities after the university initially refused to allow him to graduate.
A video showing student Kamva Goba and Alex Broadband, dean of humanities, in a terse physical interaction went viral immediately thereafter, as Kamva took the stage and berated the university.
In the video, Broadband stands at the podium, while Goba makes comments and gesticulates.
Broadband gestures that he should leave the stage, then grabs his hand and there is a commotion.
Finally, eight men in suits, one in jeans, surround Goba, and they escort him from the stage.
Asked if he had spoken about the incident with his mother, Goba said: “She understands that part of what we do is to fight injustice.”
He had gatecrashed the event by finding an alternative entrance with his mom.
UJ spokesperson Herman Esterhuizen told the Dispatch the graduation ceremony wasn’t the appropriate avenue for Goba to express his frustration.
Goba said the university was destroying his future.
The activist, born in Bedford, also known as Nyarha, says he is being rejected by the university because of his involvement in the #FeesMustFall campaign.
The university allowed Goba to complete his studies in 2017 but Goba says the registrar rejected his application to do his honours in humanities because of his advocacy for a decolonised curriculum.
Esterhuizen said Goba did not meet all the requirements.
Asked why Goba was blocked, Esterhuizen said: “Graduation ceremonies are scheduled to start at a specific time and candidates and guest are required to take seats about 45 to 30 minutes prior to the event.
“However, the university does provide a live stream of the ceremony to a venue outside the graduation hall to accommodate those who do arrive late.”
Goba described himself as being a poor student who owes the university R60,000.
Goba said he and the university spent 2018 arguing about the university accusing him of an alleged assault on a security guard.
“When I came back this year to query about my case, it just vanished into thin air but then a new case emerged – after I confronted Broadband of racism, I was charged with being racist.
“That man [Broadband] is responsible for this thing. Last year we went to ask him why each and every black worker had problems with him. I asked him why every black student has issues with him. He’s corrosive with how he deals with students,” Goba said.
“He fired an employee who was student-oriented, especially when it came to registering students in January because she wasn’t biased. In came this man, he changed everything…If you remember in 2016, this decolonisation agenda was brought by FeesMustFall, but in UJ it didn’t live up to its potency because the institution was militarised [with armed security guards].
“[Broadband] also fired a professor who headed the Pan-African school for decolonisation at UJ on the basis that he was calling out the fact that no due processes were followed in hiring him. I told him that he can’t be at the centre of destroying the epicentre of black and Pan-African thought at the institution, and yet go to the graduation and claim to be an arbiter for critical thinking and quote the (likes of) George Soros, people who accumulated wealth during colonialism.”..