OAU VC Explains Why the Students’ Union Has Not Been Reinstated

The Vice-Chancellor of Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife, Osun State, Professor Eyitayo Ogunmodede has explained why there has been a delay in the reinstatement of the university’s Students’ Union.

He revealed this during a roundtable discussion with the Editors-in-Chief of all News Agencies on Campus under the aegis of the Association of Campus Journalists, which was held at the Senate building of the University on Tuesday.

The Vice-Chancellor noted that the reason for the delay is due to the unworthy precedence left behind by the past Students’ Union leaders, recalling the fracas that unfolded during the Ibukun-led administration and the mismanagement of funds.

“If you can remember, during the last Students’ Union administration, the president called a sitting with the parliament while the principal officers were absent, which led to the president getting beaten up by students.”

“And after the suspension of the Students’ Union, I asked the Dean of Students Affairs to block the account of the Students’ Union to hinder them from withdrawing but we discovered they had withdrawn all the funds in the account. This gave me a bad impression of the Students’ Union leaders and I don’t want this to continue,” he said.

Despite this, the Vice-Chancellor made it known that he intends to reinstate the Students’ Union.

“I want to reinstate the Students Union but there are some set of students who are less than twenty in number, called the left, they are the ones working against the reinstatement of the students union. They think they have the power to reinstate the students Union but they are the ones working against the reinstatement through their actions and it pays them to do so. And this people cannot win student union election yet they are disrupting the process. Whenever there is peace they thrust something to disrupt it,” he said.

Furthermore, The Vice-Chancellor made it known that the current crop of students who are currently parading themselves as student leaders are not worthy to lead because they lack the leadership acumen to do so. As a result of this, he is unlikely to reinstate the Students’ Union until the students have worthy leaders. To this effect, he announced that the university is working on organising a leadership training for all the students to aid them in taking up leadership positions.

“If you look at the current crop of people parading themselves as leaders, [they] are not worthy of it. Also, it is good for the University to have befitting leaders because the current ones are not good enough. Some of them, their highest CGPA is 2.3. That is why we are trying to organise a leadership program to train the students. To build good Students’ Union leaders so as to avoid a repetition of what happened in [the] last administration,” he said.

He also urged the association of campus journalists to assist the management in devising a means for the Students’ Union to have worthy leaders.