It becomes imperative for us to congratulate the winners and losers of the just concluded University of Ibadan Students’ Unionelection. We identify with the eventual winners in victory and we salute the courage of the losers. Of course, what permeates our existence as living organisms is competition. It is a struggle for our life from cradle to grave; Biology teaches us that it is the survival of the fittest. After all, more than a million sperm cells are produced during intercourse, only one ultimately makes it. And throughout our life, we wrestle with every perceived and real obstacle on our way till we breathe our last. Such is the way of life. Maybe that is why the Preacher says vanity upon vanity, all is vanity. On this note, we can confidently say there are no winners and no losers in the UISU race. Kudos to all the aspirants!
Nevertheless, there is a need to clear the air of misconceptions in some quarters. Some side attractions to the elections are not so complementary to the image of the Union of Campus Journalists (UCJUI) and so we deem it fit to set the record straight.
Concerning the disclaimer of Temitope Gideon Awolusi (Temmy Gista), many of his apologists saw the disclaimer as a political means of promoting the candidacy of Aderoju Okunsanmi, nothing can be farther from the truth. First of all, UCJUI had and still has nothing to do with Deroju in any way. And if we are talking about her advert on the UCJUI board, it was simply because she maximized the opportunity that the Union offered all the aspirants to place their adverts on the board. As we have nothing for Deroju, we had nothing against Amanat Ibitowa, to whom Temmy Gista was a campaign manager. Therefore, disclaiming Temmy Gista at that material time was solely influenced by the need to TO PURGE OUR UNION OF ALL UNPROFESSIONAL AND REPULSIVE BEHAVIOURS as he was in the habit of calling himself “a campus journalist and reporter” (In legal parlance, that is passing off). Many a UIte were often times confused by his public conduct on the one hand and what he called himself on the other hand and our position was justified when comments like “this disclaimer was overdue” trailed the disclaimer. Need we say that the self-acclaimed journalist is now the General Secretary of Tedder Hall?
Another ugly dimension to the election was the accusation that UCJUI had endorsed candidates. Let us state it once and for all that no candidate was endorsed by any arm of the Union. The central notion that characterized our conduct throughout the electioneering was fairness, objectivity and utmost professionalism. That the UCJUI president was seen with an aspirant on the eve of the Presidential debate is an act of joblessness, un-seriousness and tactlessness on the part of disgruntled elements that held the view. The art of serious campus journalism is more time consuming and requires more multi-tasking than any other venture on campus. Where then is the opportunity to run after candidates in order to give them added advantages in the UISU election? And for those who accused UCJUI of collecting money from some candidates, we pray they come to the public space to state in clear terms who the principal actors of the bribery scandal are. They may be right and so we are seriously hell bent on purging our Union of all unprofessional and repulsive behaviours. Some “angry voices” even went as far as faulting the choice of UISU: AROGUNDADE DECLARES FOR NIFEMI as a headline of a news story to be a marker of being partial. We blame them not, for they are oblivious of what makes a headline, news story and in fact journalistic effusions.
Also worthy of note is the misconception that UCJUI wanted to disrupt the electioneering process by boycotting the Press Night on the original scheduled date. This too, was an opinion advanced by people who had some scores to settle with Union. The Press Night was boycotted because of what we saw to be administrative irregularities and lack of mutual respect occasioned by the very late invitation and manner of approach. More so, as one of the actors of the last election, we deemed it unfit to continue with the Press Night when the last election report had not even been submitted to the Student Representatives Council SRC by the commission and we had to accuse the SRC of connivance when we heard the SRC is already working on the approval of the said budget. Our stand was necessary, firstly, as financial members of the Students’ Union, we have the right to ask the right question and secondly as journalists, conscience of the University Community and principal actors of the electoral process, we all know if anything goes wrong, UCJUI will also get its own share as a partaker in the process. After a meeting held on the 13h of April, 2016 with the Chairman of the Students’ Union Electoral Commission at the Students’ Affairs Division where apology was tendered and necessary compromises were made on both sides. On the issue of the last electoral report, the Deputy Registrar (Students), S.O Ojelabi (the SUEC Chairman) said that the report is still being prepared by the former Secretary to the Commission and promised it will be submitted to the SRC as soon as it is ready. This was partly corroborated by the Speaker of the SRC, Toheeb Arogundade, in an interview with him when he said that the question of the last electoral report should be directed to the Commission. In his words, “I wrote a letter to the Chairman of the electoral commission to submit the report of the last election and also the names of the commissioners for documentation. Till date, only the names of the commissioners had been submitted…If you need any details on why the electoral report has not been submitted, I think the Chairman will be the best person to ask”. It is greatly disturbing that the Electoral Commission can go ahead and organise the election without submitting the last year electoral report and yet no one seems to care about this administrative insanity; indirectly, it means the Electoral Commission is not responsible to anyone in its conducts and spending and do we need to remind us that the expenses of the Students’ Union election are always been footed by the dues we all pay as students and members of the Students’ Union. If there is no report, how do we know if mismanagement and misappropriation is not being perpetrated right under our nose? No matter how independent the Commission might claim to be, not being responsible to the appropriate institution is an administrative aberration and it is not good for DEMOCRACY, Unionism and fairness. Though, many criticised us for asking the right question, we have done our part and we have emailed posterity that UCJUI will never be a party to such administrative shame and irregularity.
As far as the barring of people from attending the Press Night is concerned, it must be adequately noted that UCJUI was not the organiser of the programme as it was the Electoral Commission which deemed it fit in their wisdom to limit the presence at the Press Night to pressmen only. Their reason, to make the occasion as interactive as possible between the pressmen and aspirants as previous occasions had always turned to bullying ground by the most noise making supporters. The Electoral Commission was of course justified because this was almost what turned out to play when Uites were eventually allowed to attend the programme. Be that as it may, we still want to reiterate that the decision of who comes in for the Press Night is a sole decision of the Commission and we find it absolutely ludicrous that the same people who challenged our right to have asked to be properly carried along with the electoral process are the same people heaping the blame of what happened at the Press Night on UCJUI.
We cannot but respond to the wrongly held opinions in some quarters that aspirants were asked questions like “how to fold letter head”. An objective observer of both the Presidential Debate and the Press Night would acknowledge the radical departure from what used to be. In fact, some people, in their bitterness towards UCJUI, have forgotten that the aspirants for the position of General Secretary were not participants in the Presidential Debate. This foregrounds the extent to which people can be blinded to goodness when their minds are not at peace with those that are doing it.
We have to clear these misconceptions for the sake of POSTERITY as silence can be suicidal and we deem it necessary to address these issues as we were not unaware of the many jibes being thrown at UCJUI from uncouth and relevance-seeking mouths.
May God bless our Union.
