THE RETURN OF FALSEHOOD

EDITORIAL

THE RETURN OF FALSEHOOD

Winston Churchill once said, “The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.” This timeless truth is another variant of karma or what one may refer to as the “cold dishes” of justice and posterity. It is a widely circulated secret that truth and falsehood are always in an endless conflict right from the birth of time, falsehood is always on the run, running light years in every second with its cheetah legs, absconding and hiding away from truth. And it is so strange that truth on the other hand is even without legs and as such cannot always give falsehood a hot chase. However, while falsehood is busy running helter-skelter around trying to hide away from truth, it will one day stumble upon truth where the later is quietly waiting for its return.

On the 17th of January, 2014, the Union of Campus Journalists University of Ibadan under the leadership of Titiladunayo Daniel organized an Accountability Forum aimed at accessing the accountability and transparency of the Students’ Union executives and the Students’ Representative Council Speaker. That program was as a result of the many allegations leveled against the Babatunde Badmus-led administration among which are mismanagement, self-centredness and ego-wars, negligence, carelessness, mediocrity, hypocrisy and maladministration. So many questions were burning in the students’ minds and the Accountability forum was organized by UCJ to provide a platform whereby the students could meet with their leaders and ask such salient questions that had been troubling their minds about their union.

The Accountability Forum was organized on the 17th of January and it was quite surprising that the President, who agreed on the time and day of the meeting with the UCJ President was seen roaming the corridors of the SRC Chambers (the venue of the program)at very day. Yet, he failed to attend the program and he never deem it fit to give any reason for his apparent absence.

Three other executives (Assistant General Secretary, Sports Secretary, PRO) also emulated the irresponsible steps of the president. Consequently, the program generated a lot of debates among the students as some questioned the constitutional right of The UCJ to organize such a forum. For some, the role of the press is just to observe and make recommendations to the Students’ Representative Council who may now act as they deem appropriate, but for others, it was argued that nothing was wrong with The UCJ organizing the program since it was all for the betterment of the union. But the truth is that the UCJ would not have organized the program if the Students’ Representative Council had been alive to its duties.

However, as it has been said earlier that falsehood will always come around stumbling upon truth where the later is quietly sitting, the same president of The students’ Union that boycotted the Accountability Forum organized by UCJ is now asking the same UCJ to grant him an interview so that he may intimate Uites of the “many achievements” of his administration, what a world! The way the union lacked the constitutional right to call him to an accountability forum, the same goes for him lacking constitutional right to summon the union to grant him an interview.

Finally, the position of the union is clear, if the students’ union president wants to tell all Uites about his many excellent feats, it is simple, we are ready to organize the same accountability forum he boycotted for himself and other members of his executives so that they may face all Uites and explain all that they have done in all their months in office. If he is not okay with that, let him call his suspended Public Relations Officer, Ugo Nwaokioke to grant him an interview and they can post it on the students’ union Facebook group or at best on the Students’ union press club board.