By Seyi Adedokun
“Pollution is nothing but the resources we are not harvesting. We allow them to disperse because we have ignorant of their value”- R. Buckminster Fuller
With this absence of the union, everyone has pretended as if all is well. This partly follows their ability to be well and on the other hand, some have lamented about its suspension. However, it may be or however it might have painted itself, its value still has a hole created by its absence. Obviously, many would have prepared to submit an essay contest to the Students’ representative council by now, even if they get it written for them.
A Yoruba adage states that the absence of a cat turns a home to an abode to a rat. This adage has proved obvious than right in this present state. The absence of the Students’ Union has birthed a lot of fortune to misdeed and this building (Students’ Union Building) has become a place designed for exchange of some new currencies. Succinctly, what invades the building is more than the yelling history of cat and rat.
The senior special assistance on media and publicity to the President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, GarbaShehu spoke with Vanguard on August 22, 2017 that rodents ravaged the president’s office. He further spoke to THISDAY that the three months of disuse of office by the president made rodents to have caused a lot of damages to the furniture and the air conditioning units. It can also be termed a misuse because it should have been accessible to those that will clean the office and all documents transferred somewhere else. This incidence made Buhari to work from home for days.
Since the suspension of the students’union, things have gone their own ways and the priority for students has stylishly been misplaced. It has been a long time that “making to belong” has become “making to be-short” and attention to students by the Deans of each faculties is not like before. No one feels the goodness of this beauty of what surrounds him and social welfare is no more on the average but its gradient has declined to the best zero. Maybe the Vice chancellor is not aware of this new development of dearth of activities; how the thinking faculty of some individuals is rarely laudable and how many students have been locked in their sentiment to believing indirectly that this world-class sense cannot be sensitized through students’ unionism.
One may say his existence is not compulsory to be cared for by this body, but what about this little that should be given to you about your relationship with the student affairs building? Many times, students are too shy to approach this building, but in some ways, the students’ union is a way positive thoroughfare. In some faculties, students of the same department have not been able to recognize one another which is another factor that forms dismantle in the bond that is supposed to bind them together. Fresh students especially are victims of this backlog. This is also one of the contributors to their poor performance in the first semester examination.
According to the graph, it is obvious that some students’ self-confidence speaks too muchbut produced a little. It can be agreed that the unfortunate underdevelopment by the Joint Admission Matriculation Board to cancel Post-UME is an exodus from a good riddance to beautiful nonsense. Fortunately for students that entered this trap, they get admitted into their institutions of choice and their results are speaking for them now. It is most unfortunate for Public health to attain such inglorious percentage of failure (45.8%) and faculty Agriculture and forestry being the second runner-up to the best failure with (33.3%). This unfortunate logic is not only about the state of their preparation, but the common tie which will easily birth collective preparation and assurance has been broken. In a twinkling of an eye, resolutions will begin to fallaway in the second semester. The wrong side to it, that may come up from some yet-to-develop-minds is a resolution on a narrow sense.
What represent the furniture in the students’ union are not the materials that are breathless alone, but those that fill the vacuum. The students’ union in time past has backed from standing to protect students’ interests. It was eavesdropped from some unrepentant unionists that if Ojo Aderemi did not allow this to happen, the money from the school management would have been dancing in their accounts. One must not think absolutely that the union will birth any new thing because twenty-four days is too early to greet anyone to success. Within this same moment, some executives have trespassed and sold their integrity to cheap senses. It is a plus at one side for this suspension, but harmful in every other way. It is obvious than naysay that some rats are out of those walls, but some are in to add to the burden of this offices’ souls.
Candidly, a sinner does not have his punishment alone, but carries a righteous mind along. Although, the associations, clubs and the other union inside this building is also passing through this hard time together with the tide, it is also a sign that independence can also be jailed with dependence. This has made these ones to open new offices on the volleyball pitch, some in the cafeterias and others in places that a strong navigator cannot even locate if there is an emergency.
The students’ union building has never remained the same. It is now a centrefor kiss-and-stay-for-some-romance, hiding place for theft overseers and a home for giant rats. Meanwhile, this has not stopped the other union (Union of Campus Journalists) from doing its own work. For who shall arrest the pen?
It should be noteworthy that the school management did not attack the issue at first, but dealt with the issuers (maybe they are also terrorist organization). Unlike many would say, “it will be worthy of you if you provide for your wards before punishing them for a misdeed”, the management has decided to put the cart before the horse by punishing the executives before providing solutions. But, who will judge the judge?
There are some words in “A man of the people” written by Chinua Achebe which reads thus, “A common saying in the country after independence was that it didn’t matter what you knew but who you knew. And believe me, it was no idle talk. For a person like me who simply couldn’t stoop to lick any Big Man’s boots it created a big problem…”
Can it be that this has sent the union to its early bad state? If what this man did was for his people, then Ojo Aderemi was right and ready to land in this importunity. But anything borne out of pride, ego and self-appraisal brings but little cake for the day.
Apart from the rats that will invade the students’ union building, some rats have caused disorderliness among students, friendship has been eaten up and students have been rebuked from their “la vidaloca”( doing wild or crazy things that make them happy) way of life which does not pose any danger. Some have turned to night crawlers, peeping into each person’s room to steal their virginity in advantage of this united absence. But before these poisonous and unwanted rats find their ways into these offices to cause damages and spoil some costly materials, before rats invade our unity, it is high time we came back and reinstitute ourselves about leadership and the true self of it. The students’ union is one statue that explains the unity of students and the common things they do.
