By: William Olaleye
The University of Ibadan Students’ Union held its second Town Hall meeting for the session on Friday.
Olabisi Owadayo, the Vice President, was on hand to receive the constituency heads and representatives as they arrived.
She apologized for the late commencement of the meeting and passed the mic around for introductions.
She then called the attention of the gathering back to the first town hall meeting held last semester, stating that the SU had treated a large portion of the complaints that were presented at that meeting.
She further welcomed questions, commendations and suggestions from the gathering.
“This meeting is for us all to contribute to the success of this administration and the students we represent. How has the Union served so far, and how can we do better?” She stated.
Over the course of the meeting, student leaders raised concerns on various issues affecting the students, including the delay in the NELFUND fee refund, Infrastructure, irregularity in Wi-Fi across Halls among others.
Abiola Samuel, the President, Faculty of Arts also raised concerns about the poor results recorded among the 100-Level students of a particular.
Another representative from UIMSA complained that the Mathematics course that had been added to the curriculum for Medical students was an inconvenience as it caused a drop in CGPAs and is not relevant to the field.
Addressing the expressed complaints, Owadayo promised that the Union would look into each complain and address them.
She further stated that some of the issues had been relayed to them previously and that they had made progress in tackling them.
She added that while the Wi-Fi was not present in certain halls, arrangements were been made to install them.
“That was something we worked on a lot last semester. Zik, Indy, Awo, and Idia are currently being worked on.” She said.
She also explained that the delay in NELFUND fee refund was due to the manual process still employed by the body in charge of processing them.
“The process is manual. (Officials) have a lot of complaints on their table. Paperwork.” She said.
She advised the complainant to provide them with data of the affected students so they could work with that.
The President of the Union, Covenant Odedele, was also on hand to address some issues.
He advised that student leaders encourage students to properly manage available facilities in order to slow down wear and tear.
In closing, he admonished student leaders to work hand in hand with the student Union executives for the good of the Union.
The Dean of Student Affairs, Dr. Demola Lewis, who was also at the meeting, echoed this sentiment, admonishing students to maximize their representation at the management level.
