EDITORIAL: IT STARTS FROM US

May it not be said that we, the students of University of Ibadan, are responsible for the hike in our school fees!

The rot plaguing our university cannot be isolated from the retrogressive pace of growth militating against the Nigerian state – macrocosm of our microcosm. It is high time we began to fix some things in our domain. The kind of offering-collection we witnessed on Wednesday, 23rd March 2016 at the Students’ Union stakeholders’ meeting is ridiculous and should be frowned at by all and sundry. It projects the university management in a bad light and shows the ineptitude of its top managers. We must not forget however that this is a bad time for Nigeria and even the ivory towerism of the university cannot distance itself from the harsh reality of the country. May we not live when the time is bad!

UI
Be that as it may, there are certain areas the students of the university can help the management contain the worsening situation without the student populace necessarily bearing any extra financial burden. In fact, the various student leaders must, as a matter of urgency, have a shift in their orientation and attitude to the administration of their halls, faculties and departmental associations.

It is unfair on the part of the students of this university to blame the university management for not setting its priority while our own priority list is misplaced and ill-informed by our supposed leaders. Or of what relevance is a hall’s collaboration with a telecommunication company in bringing a famous artiste while the hall smells of rot and decay?

Reflecting on the Obafemi Awolowo Hall recent saga, one is bound to ask what the Hall’s executive members in the past few years have contributed to the development of the hall they claim to love and take pride in. Apart from the ritual of producing “souvenir turned book”, what other ways have the residents of the hall felt the impacts of the dues they have been paying to the Hall executive in the past few years? Or maybe we should even ask what purpose those associations really serve.

Recently, the Association of Faculty of Arts Students (AFAS) held a Freshers’ Orientation programme which cost the association more than 300 000. The programme, it must be noted, added nothing to the new students’ knowledge of their faculty and its students’ association. It was a celebration of frivolities on the part of Adeoye Adejare led administration. Money was squandered, time was wasted, the faculty was polluted with noise, and opportunites to acquaint the fresh students with the traditions of the Faculty was missed on that very day. The experience in AFAS is a prototype of what obtains in the other associations where the significance of Freshers’ Orientation programme is trivialized by the cluelessness of the supposed leaders of the associations.

More worrisome is the un-intellectual outline of programmes that accompany the celebration of these associations in what we have come to know as “weeks”. The commitment of Globacom Company in sponsoring Mell-Idia last session could have been diverted to more worthy causes which could have been mutually beneficial to both halls.

Gone are those days when what usually preoccupies a leader’s mind is what lasting legacy they would leave behind in the office. The idea of capital project is very strange among the students’ associations in our university. We seem to have forgotten that we have to start practicing self-reliance as a matter of principle in the university as what we cultivate here are those that will stick with us in the life after school.

Many of our halls of residence need repainting. Are we to wait on the school management to do the painting? And that again brings us back to the question of what purpose the dues should be serving. The dues should be used to better the condition of life and infrastructure in the associations without any prejudice to the oversight responsibility of the university management. It is high time we began to fix certain rot in our domain. For UI to be great, it is our collective responsibility.

UCJUI is not in any way excusing the failure of the university management in performing its responsibility, but we recognize the fact that the Nigerian state herself is not getting its bearing right. UCJUI is not advocating for the repeat of the collection of offering to buy another pumping machine for Queen Idia Hall, all we want is that the associations’ leaders show themselves as partners in progress in Prof. Olayinka’s avowed commitment to reposition our University of Ibadan. An association like National Association of Students of English (NASELS, UI) which changed its basic due from 1 700 to 2 000 on the flimsy excuse that that was the Students’ Representative Council advocated must show evidence that the extra 300 is actually accounted for with tangible project that will outlast Dominic Omokaro led administration.

In conclusion, the university management must show leadership and sincerity of purpose in its dealing with the students. Injustice sets in when just things are treated unjustly and unjust things are treated justly, to paraphrase the Greek philosopher Plato. The financial misappropriation case of a former Independence Hall Administrator General, Suberu Bolaji which (the case) died on its way to Students’ Disciplinary Committee SDC is a bad omen. Sube escaped justice but Mote who led a noble cause of protesting unavailability of water in the same hall is suspended for a semester. Our University of Ibadan should be towering above these petty avoidable messes that smear image of a towering star.

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