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The trajectory of students' unrest in Nigeria universities has been linked to the underside of modernity. By responding to this, the study explores conditions necessary to decolonise the mindset of university authorities and students, against modernity as an offshoot of students' unrest. Ubuntu philosophy rationalised the study while Transformative Paradigm lensed the process with the use of Participatory Action Research design. The study involved ten co-researchers, three university management staff, three students' leaders, two security personnel and two university lecturers were selected using Convenient Sampling Technique. Focus Group Discussion was employed to generate data, and the data were subjected to Conversational Analysis to make sense of the data. Students' involvement in decision-making, democratic and facilitative leadership style, were found as tools to decolonise the space of students' unrest as an underside of modernity. The reconstruction of the university system against social unrest emanating from modernity becomes expedient through Ubuntu cum decoloniality.

The university system in Nigeria has been characterised by persistent social unrest traceable to strained relationships between students and the university authorities. Observations, reports and literature confirm that students' unrest in the universities has become a clog in the wheel of development and speedy actualisation of university goals and objectives. The need to manage and maintain the social space for relative peace and tranquility thereof is expedient. This study aims at redefining students and university authority relationships as a tool to deconstructing students' unrest in Nigerian universities. Human Relations Theory of Management (HRTM) was used to theorise this study while Transformative Paradigm (TP), which was adopted as a stance to forestall existing and future unrest was used to lens the study. Participatory Action Research (PAR) was adopted as a research design for the study. The sample size for this study consists of 10 participants: three student leaders, three university management members, two lecturers and two security personnel were selected using expert sampling techniques. Focused Group Discussion (FGD) was used to collect data from the participants, and the data collected were analysed using Socio-thematic Analysis (StA). This study reveals that inadequate funding is a significant challenge resulting in students' unrest. Contrarily, the provision of student personnel services along with modern maintenance culture, transparency and accountability were found to be the dimension of peaceful university operation devoid of social unrest and therefore becomes a tool to deconstruct the strained relationship between students and the university authorities.