“The best way to be a leader is to be a servant, no matter what people say or do to you, the important thing is to stay focused and keep doing your best.”- OLISE
KINDLY GIVE A BRIEF INTRODUCTION OF YOURSELF
My name is Mbukanma Olise, I’m a 300 level student, in the department of Sociology, faculty of the social sciences. I’m a very open-minded person, jovial, very playful and a very serious Christian.
HOW HAS IT BEEN SO FAR AND HOW HAVE YOU BEEN ABLE TO COMBINE ACADEMICS WITH OFFICE?
Basically, I will say it hasn’t been easy, It’s been God. You know when you are dealing with young people; it can’t be an easy task especially when you are dealing with boys. We are all young men and some will like to show that they are the toughest while some are gentle, obedient, law –abiding, some are born leaders while some are just notorious people who will try to create some form of chaos in the hall. You do not expect 100% appreciation. Some people will give you reason to be sad. The best way to be a leader is to be a servant, no matter what people say or do to you, the important thing is to stay focused and keep doing your best.
WHAT WAS YOUR MANDATE WHEN YOU WERE CONTESTING AND WHAT YOU HAVE BEEN ABLE TO ACHIEVE.
While I was contesting, I tried not to promise so much so I won’t fail. I proposed there was going to be a board where we would project world cup matches and I think I did that without waiting for the fund from the hall management. I did that from my own pocket because that time, we were new in office and the world cup came so fast. It would have taken a long process if we waited for the hall management to fund that project. I bought the projector, the board. I also proposed to show movies in the hall occasionally and I remember we did that a couple of times last semester. Constitutionally, I’m supposed to handle the freshers’ welcome, I did that, and to the glory of God, it was a success. Now it’s the second semester, and one of the major duties of mine is the upcoming hall week. I am planning for that, sourcing for funds, travelling; it’s not been easy mixing school work with this office. I’ve received harsh words here and there, sometimes from older men. We are young people and you don’t expect them to trust you with money especially when you tell them you want to use the money for a social activity, not everybody understands that. You only expect them to give you money for projects. The hall week is a social activity but there will be some intellectual programmes.
WHEN WILL THE HALL WEEK COMMENCE AND WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR IT?
A tentative date has been slated for the last Sunday of November to run through the first week of December because I was made to understand that no hall can have its week before the student union week and the student union week would be ending on either the 28th or 29th of November, and the tentative date has been set for immediately after it. I intend to make the hall week what a proper hall week should be; there would be a mix of intellectual, social and religious activities also with health programmes to sensitize Mellanbites on diseases like Ebola and STDs. There would be a skill acquisition programme, a lot of people are in their final year and they don’t know what they want to do with their lives, I have contacted some old boys of Mellanby hall and people in the society who would be part of the skill acquisition programme which will impart into the lives of these people and let them have a focus, so that they would make a choice if they would get paid employment or be self sufficient individuals. I don’t want to promise too much, but the hall week is going to be great. Its not something common that the hall week falls in the month of December and you know how life is in this country during periods of festivities- the hike in prices of things and a lot of people keeping money for their holidays, so its not so easy getting funds from people, but God has been guiding us and we are making progress.
WHAT ARE THE HALL EXECUTIVES DOING ABOUT THE WATER/ELECTRICITY ISSUE AND DON’T YOU THINK YOU DON’T COMMUNICATE ENOUGH TO MELLANBITES?
About the water and light, the university of Ibadan has been facing this issue for the past two weeks, it is not just in Mellanby alone. That is the problem most Mellanbite are having, they believe it is just in Mellanby hall but it is the whole university. Whenever there there is a blackout in the university, it is because they have problems in some of the halls and to fix these problems they have to turn off the light in the whole university. We have spoken with the warden and he testified to the fact that even in staff quarters, they have not had water and light. We’ve been working on this and we’ve been interacting with the students union leaders through one of their executives in our hall, the P.R.O. About water in the hall: about few days ago, we we succeeded in getting a new generator to pump water whenever there is no light. About information, we’ve fixed the public address systems and the information minister has been been using them to disseminate information whenever there there is light because you need light to use the public address system. Even in the absence of light, he has tried his best by using the notice board, but a lot of people don’t go to the notice board so they keep saying they don’t know what is happening. Information is always pasted on the executive notice board. We are trying our best but we can do better.
WE WOULD LIKE YOU TO RATE YOURSELF, YOUR WORK IN OFFICE AND THAT OF YOUR CO- EXECUTIVES?
I would not want to rate myself , I would not like to say that on a scale of 10, I scored 1 or whatever. It is left to Mellanbites to do that.
DESCRIBE YOUR WORKING RELATIONSHIP WITH OTHER EXCOS?
The relationship is cordial, we are like a family, and we try amongst ourselves to complement each other. We help and support one another.
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WHAT’S YOUR MESSAGE TO MELLANBITES AND ADVICE TO ANYONE ASPIRING TO CONTEST?
I will like to say try and be patriotic because it is one of the problems in this hall. When there is an event, for example, during the freshers’ welcome, we had to practically beg them, it took a lot of time to beg them to come out and now the hall week is approaching and there is going to be a lot of activities. We need people who have the love of Mellanby at heart. We have spent money, we are planning for people to enjoy the programme and it would not be nice if people are not there. Concerning the advice for any aspiring assistant hall chairman, the person must be able to take a lot of sacrifices. This position is not one that just anybody should go and pick up a form for because he wants to have a room in B block. The person must be willing to be hardworking because you’ll miss a lot of classes, your personal life because you will be a sort of public figure in the hall, be ready to work without appreciation, be wise, calm, know when to talk and how to talk to people.
MHPO
