Reform, Great Sam, Others Emerge as OAU Students Elect New Union Officers

Following the reinstatement of the Great Ife Students’ Union that was proscribed by the Ogunbodede-led administration over three years ago, the elections for the Union’s Central Executives Council was conducted on Wednesday 1st of September, 2021, across all the thirteen faculties on the campus.

The election started around 09:00 am where electoral commissioners and personnel from the security units were seen moving to the various faculties they were assigned to with electoral materials. The campus reporters of the Association of Campus Journalists, Obafemi Awolowo University were also available across all the faculties to observe and report to the generality of the students the situation of the election. 

Although, the voting did not start at exactly 9:00 am due to different issues across different faculties, the time for the commencement of voting also differs from one faculty to the other due to different constraints.

Even though the election process was averagely peaceful, there were different forms of chaos across different faculties. The first fight of the election broke out from the Faculty of Law. The fight was a result of an argument between the security officers and the agents as the former accused the latter of staying too close to the ballot box.

A series of problems occurred in the Faculty of Arts owing to the fact that the election started late, many voters could gain access to the lecture theatre where the election took place because of their large number and some students complained bitterly of their name not being on the voters’ list. During this rumble, fights, disagreements, arguments and all more ensued which led to the breakage of the glass windows at the AUD II where the election took place.

The Faculties of Agriculture, Education and Science were not left out in the chaos as a result of their large populations and sluggishness from the electoral officers, which many on the queue and made other students leave in annoyance. The chaos was resolved with the intervention of the security officers around.

Elections in the Faculties of Administration, Social Sciences, Environmental Design and Management and Technology were moderately fair with agents trying to relate to the voters and convince them to vote for their candidates. Faculties of Basic Medical Sciences, Clinical Sciences and Dentistry of the College of Health Sciences and Faculty of Pharmacy had relatively a chaos-free election.

Olayiwola Folahan popularly known as Reform, a part 3 student of the Department of English was declared winner of the Presidential election of the Great Ife Students’ Union after polling 3,139 votes to defeat his opponents Jimoh Kehinde aka Efficiency, Adegoke Adeola aka Hon Statesman, Olokede Oluwabukola aka Bukola, Atoyebi Samuel aka Complex and Omidiora Emmanuel aka Flash who polled 1,938, 929, 524, 306 and 180, respectively. Aworanti Salvation Grace, a part 2 student of the department of Philosophy won the post of Vice President unopposed after polling 6,648 votes.

Odewale Samuel Damilare, a.k.a Great Sam, a part 4 student of the Faculty of Pharmacy, who won the post of the Office of the Secretary-General, polled 4,215 votes to beat his opponent, Popoola Iyanuoluwa, who polled 2,617 votes. 

Abdulganiyu Ismail, aka Mastermind, polled 3,243 votes to defeat Akinboni Opeyemi aka OP Love and Adedapo Taiwo aka Network who polled 2,127 and 1,556, respectively, to win the post of the Assistant Secretary-General. 

Joy Oluwasegun Abiola aka Legbeti polled 3,276 votes to defeat Yusuf Toheeb aka Yusolat who polled 2,294 and Olanlokun Peter aka Perolexy who polled 1,285 for the post of Financial Secretary. Ogunpeki Taofeek aka Tao also polled 4,110 votes to defeat Oyeleke Opeyemi aka Lugard who polled 2,808 votes for the office of the Public Relations Officer.

The post of the Welfare Director was won by Dada Arafat who polled 4,721 votes to defeat Lateef Ekundayo aka Hon DY who polled 2,174 votes. Adeboye Olamilekan aka Omo Alhaji was declared the winner of the post of Director of Socials after polling a total number of 3,530 votes to defeat his opponent Adeyemi Ibrahim aka Bright who polled 3,388 votes.

Ogundana Ayotunde aka Oluwanoni won the post of the Director of Sports after polling a total number of 4,666 votes to defeat Adegoke Toheeb aka Toheebah who polled 2,490 votes. 

According to the electoral commission, the inauguration of the newly elected executives is to hold after the rain semester examinations of the University.