The former faculty of science President-elect, Mr. Bodunde Ebenezer Olayemi, (popularly known as Speaking Eben), in an interview with ZHPO, talks about the reasons, the intrigues, and drama that surrounded his resignation from his elected post.
Talk us through the election process?
The election took place around October 2021, towards the end of the second semester, last year. It was the first time elections will be conducted electronically, which means that you could vote from anywhere with your gadget. A lot of things came up, the election initially held around October 11 and it got to a point where people could not log in or something, because of that, the election was nullified and they had to prepare ahead for another election. When another election came up, there were still a lot of things that went wrong; like the fact that not all details were imputed into the database, because of that, some people did not get the password to vote. To avoid disenfranchisement, they had to create an alternative for people to vote through google form, and that was when the problem started because it was open to a specific category of people alone, who had not voted.
When you say a specific category of people, what do you mean?
Some students’ information were not imputed into the database, and it was that of 200level and 400level students of chemistry who were 82 in number. Therefore, they couldn’t vote through the link provided like other students. So, they had to create a special google form for them. However, a lot of non-Chemistry students also voted through the google form. After the voting process, it was discovered that about 200 plus students voted through the Google Form, which was more than the expected 82. The information of those who voted was filtered by looking crosschecking it with their details and eventually only about 45 out of the over 200 that voted were eligible to use the google form. So, they didn’t even get up to the number of students they were supposed to get but 45 plus. So after the election, some people were now saying the google form was not supposed to be used, even the people that supported it in the first place were saying the same.
So even after the Google form, you won the election again, and now they brought up this issue. Between that time and before your resignation, were there still any official complaints lodged against you?
I wouldn’t have known if anyone was doing anything behind, there were no official complaints. After the election, we went to the tribunals and I still won the elections.
After winning the election in spite of the multiple process you still decided to resign, what could have led to that?
A lot of things happened.
Do you think it is your political opponents that are behind this?
No! I don’t think so, the management got to know that I did not submit all the required documents when I was contesting so they said I was not supposed to contest at all and I know within myself that it is more honorable to resign than be disqualified.
In your letter of resignation, you said due to the incomplete document, what is that document?
My school fees receipt.
Haven’t you paid your school fees then?
As of the time of the election, I had not paid.
Did the electoral commission know about it?
Yes, I explained to the representative from chemistry, that I wrote a letter to the V.C., for the reopening of the portal, and since the letter was not opened until the deadline of submission, so I could not get the receipt, but the representative from Chemistry promised to tell the electoral chairman about it and he did. And they decided that I could go on to contest without submitting the school fees receipt.
Is it the electoral commission that laid down the requirement for school fee receipt as part of the qualification credentials, or is it constitutionally required?
Yes, it was the electoral commission.
Did your opponents know you did not submit the school receipt at the time of contesting?
No, they didn’t.
Do you think they got to know later on?
I don’t know.
But if they did not know and didn’t challenge it, why did you resign?
The management got to know about it.
Did the management have a problem with your uncompleted documents at the time of the election?
The management did not know anything about our student politics in the first place but it was until recently they decided to intervene.
Were you called to an inquiry sitting before the management, and were your opponents around?
Yes, one of them was around, they later called the others to come around.
Which one of them was around at first?
Adesina Seun, the first-runner up at the elections.
Now that you’ve resigned what is the next process to fill up the post of President?
Since it was a resignation, it is supposed to be the Vice President elect that will take over as Acting President
Is it not possible that because the Vice-President-elect has not been sworn in yet, the first runner-up at the elections will be the next in line?
That one is not an option at all.
So, what is the next step now?
We will wait the report of the management panel, I don’t know what they want to do.Sialor
Sailor
