Once again, the serenity that characterizes the university community has been restored. Blaring jingles have retired from the amplifiers. People have turned from being greeting machines in a bid to gain votes, fake smiles have also vanished from the mouths of our politicians just as conspicuous posters are being washed away from the surfaces of our sacred walls. All these are the epilogue of the just concluded Students’ Union election.
We want to emphatically register our displeasure at some of the ignoble and obnoxious acts that accompanied the electoral process. We believe the university community is meant to be a model for the outside world considering our intellect and erudition. However, it is unfortunately alarming that the reverse is the case; the town is already influencing the gown. What operates at the level of our Students’ Union politics is just a replication of the dirty politics being played outside the campus.
As a union, we seek to strongly condemn the various slanderous and libelous statements spoken and written all over the social media by candidates’ supporters in a bid to outrun their opponents. These include the creation of fake social media accounts to attack opponents’ personalities, doctored Facebook chats and other propaganda notes flying around on the manifesto night. We also seek to strongly condemn the various acts of violence exhibited by some supporters of a candidate. We believe that these acts are barbaric and thus, not befitting of our status as intellectuals in the temple of knowledge.
This editorial will definitely not be completed without considering the role played by some religious associations during the election period. In as much as we believe that everyone has the political right to vote or to be voted for and to campaign for any candidate of one’s choice;we also believe that there should be a demarcation between religion and politics. We believe individuals should not use religion as a tool for obtaining political power and religious authority should not be misused to mislead people, neither should it be used for ignoble acts.
We understand that one of the presidential candidates who lost in the election has already written a petition to the Students’ Union Electoral Commission concerning these malpractices and we hope that the Electoral Commission will act accordingly by looking into all the alleged misconducts and making decisions as appropriate. We hope the Electoral Commission will not default in this aspect in order to lay good precedents for coming Students’ Union Elections.
Finally, we wish to congratulate President-elect, Odesola Oluwafemi Victor and the entire Redemption Team on their election as the new executive of the Students’ Union. The President-elect should be aware that to whom much is given much is expected, he and his entire team have a herculean task ahead of them and we hope as do the entire University of Ibadan student body that they are equal to the said task.
