On paper, the University of Ibadan Students’ Union electoral season has not officially commenced. In reality, the campus community is submerged in an aggressive, coordinated, and full-blown political circus.
Digital spaces are inundated daily with high-gloss graphics, broadcast chains flood student forums, political machineries convene physical strategy meetings, and aspirants openly emblazon their promotional collateral with official Union insignia alongside prospective executive titles.
To maintain that an active electoral ban remains operative across the university is no longer a matter of administrative protocol; it has degenerated into an open farce.
The semantic defence routinely mounted by these aspirants and their campaign machineries- that their ongoing engagements represent mere “consultation” or exploratory “awareness” insults student intelligence.
In conventional political structures, consultation is deliberate, exploratory, and discrete. It involves private sounding out of stakeholders, evaluating ground support, and framing policy agendas away from public fanfare. What is currently playing out across faculties, departments, and residential halls bears none of those modest hallmarks. It is unmistakable electioneering: structured publicity committees, standardised brand identities, campaign slogans, and overt solicitations for goodwill and votes masquerading as innocent introductory flyers.
When a graphic displays an aspirant’s portrait, an unambiguous office tag, and the official symbols of the Students’ Union, it is not an awareness campaign. It is an act of defiance against constitutional order; i.e., in substance, it is electoral campaigning conducted outside the established electoral framework.
Where heads fail
Yet, to understand why this political frenzy spilt so aggressively into the open, one must examine the institutional failure and procedural paralysis at the top.
Under Article XI (2), of the Students’ Union Constitution, the Electoral Commission, which is charged with the duty to conduct all Union elections, is composed of the Deputy Registrar (Students) as Chairman, alongside designated representatives drawn directly from each Hall of Residence and each Faculty.
Under Article XII (1), the exclusive mandate to draw up and publish electoral regulations, clear aspirants, and set the electoral calendar rests squarely with this commission, with the requirement that such regulations be published at least fourteen days before the election date.
The critical constitutional crisis, however, lies in the timeline. Article X (1) of the Constitution explicitly stipulates that “Elections shall normally be held not later than 30 days after resumption in a session”. That constitutional timetable has long since been exceeded.
Today, the academic session is already in its eighth week of a standard thirteen-week teaching semester. The midpoint of the semester has passed, continuous assessments are underway, and the inevitable pressure of final semester examinations looms large on the horizon.
Yet, despite this advanced stage of the academic calendar, the Student Union Electoral Committee (SUEC) has not even been constituted, let alone inaugurated to issue a statutory timetable.
This administrative lethargy raises an unavoidable question for the university administration, the Student Affairs Division, and hall and faculty leadership: what exactly is the roadmap?
Is the unspoken plan to compress the entire statutory electoral cycle, the nomination of commission members, publication of guidelines, lifting of the ban, sales of forms, mandatory screening, petitions, the official campaign window, manifesto night, and polling day into the final, stressful weeks of the semester?
Spilling political campaigns and student union elections into the revision and examination weeks would be a monumental failure of planning. It creates an unhealthy clash between students’ primary academic obligations and their civic participation, placing undue strain on voters, aspirants, and administrators alike
“I am innocent”, say the mouths
This structural delay is precisely what many aspirants cite in private to justify their premature campaigns. Their underlying logic is clear: faced with an administrative vacuum and the legitimate fear that the eventual official campaign window will be truncated to a matter of days before examinations, aspirants claim they are forced to launch early campaigns.
In their view, waiting for a delayed, uncertain official whistle would leave them disadvantaged and incapable of adequately reaching the thousands of voters scattered across halls, faculties, and off-campus residences.
While that operational anxiety is understandable from a purely strategic standpoint, it cannot serve as a valid justification for disregarding the established electoral framework.
Structural tardiness on the part of the authorities cannot become an excuse for institutional anarchy. If every aspirant unilaterally chooses when to declare the campaign open under the pretext of limited future timelines, rules cease to exist, and the entire framework of student self-governance crumbles into an arbitrary contest of who can shout the loudest first.
Furthermore, allowing unauthorised campaigning to flourish simply rewards the brazenness of those willing to break regulations, while systematically penalising law-abiding aspirants who respect institutional boundaries and wait for lawful authorisation.
There is a creeping, dangerous rationalisation taking root across campus circles: the excuse that premature electioneering, regulatory evasion, and constitutional shortcuts are simply “how politics is done”.
Proponents of this viewpoint point to national political habits or peer institutions to justify disorder, arguing that strict adherence to statutory timelines is an impractical luxury in a fast-paced environment.
But reducing student governance to a race to the bottom degrades the entire ethos of tertiary leadership. When aspirants and stakeholders trade regulatory discipline for convenience simply because “everyone is doing it,” student unionism is stripped of its ideological substance, leaving behind an unprincipled scramble for executive seats.
The University of Ibadan Students’ Union proudly claims the historic mantle of “The Father of Intellectual Unionism,” a legacy built on principled advocacy, rigorous procedure, and moral authority rather than chaotic populism.
That heritage demands that the Union set the benchmark for constitutional fidelity, not mirror the very systemic indiscipline it criticises in broader national affairs.
Convenience cannot become a substitute for constitutionalism, nor can intellectualism be discarded whenever administrative delays occur. If the premier university is to live up to its foundational ideals, its electoral processes must reflect decorum, institutional order, and unyielding respect for the rule of law.
Eyes weary from looking away
This is where the Students’ Representative Council (SRC) shares significant culpability. While the constitution does not vest the SRC with the power to establish the Electoral Commission, the Council is the supreme representative policy-making body of the Union under Article XVII and Article XXV.
It has the constitutional mandate under Article XXV, Section 2 to take cognisance of conduct affecting the reputation and order of the Union and to initiate disciplinary proceedings against erring members.
The SRC’s prolonged silence amid this widespread disorder represents a profound abdication of parliamentary responsibility.
The House has failed to issue a binding resolution warning aspirants against early campaigning, has neglected to summon prominent culprits before its Disciplinary Committee, and has failed to publicly engage the Student Affairs Division to demand a clear timeline for the constitution of the Electoral Commission.
By looking the other way while aspirants plaster graphics across social platforms and convert student spaces into unregulated campaign grounds, the Council has effectively sanctioned the chaos. Inaction from the Union’s supreme policy body is not mere neutrality, it is, in its way, complicity.
Legs must walk like legs
Aspirants who demonstrate an eager willingness to circumvent foundational electoral guidelines before setting foot in office provide a disturbing preview of how they intend to govern: with opportunism, selective adherence to rules, and total disregard for institutional checks and balances.
The student body cannot afford a crop of leaders whose very entry into office is built upon constitutional violations.
The time for administrative ambiguity has expired. The Student Affairs Division, alongside the Halls of Residence and Faculty leadership, must act immediately to constitute the Electoral Commission and issue an unambiguous, realistic electoral roadmap.
Simultaneously, the SRC must awaken from its slumber, assert its oversight role, and establish clear boundaries to halt this premature campaign frenzy.
If the rule of law is to retain any meaning in the premier university, order must be restored, the electoral calendar regularised, and those treating constitutional provisions as mere suggestions must be held firmly to account before the integrity of the upcoming election is fatally compromised.
