Faith Adediran
One does not need to be a fortune teller to know that what awaits every student of the University of Ibadan this session on the facet of all the school's fees is nothing but adversity. Especially, when one considers the 'successful experimentation' of all the duplicated and unjustifiable fees that the students paid in the last session. This is after the woeful failure of the leadership of the Students' Union to outrightly reject those explicitly unexplainable and unjust fees.
Following the successful experimentation of the fees in the last session through the introduction of Utility Levy to all and mandatory payment of Laboratory and/or Studio Levies some Faculties like Education, Technology, Sciences, etc. Unsurprisingly, the hike in the fees has been completely implemented. This can be credited to the shabby effort of the previous leadership of the Students' Union led by Samson Tobiloba Samuel (Host) to duly represent the interests of the students. However, it is appalling that the current leadership of the Students' Union led by Aweda Bolaji (Oloye) have resiled to tread on the same path that the immediate past leadership took which did not bear any fruit.
The first step was the call on all students to desist from making payments of the hiked fees, stating that the leadership of the Students' Union is in a negotiating stage with the management of the university. It should be noted that this was the resolution of the 'stakeholders' of the Students' Union which includes the executives, officers of the Students Representative Council (SRC), Hall Chairpersons, Faculties' and Departments' Presidents. While the decision to substitute the opinions of this set of individuals for that of the generality of the students (The Congress) is one of the misdeeds of the leadership of the Students' Union, the failure to constitute a monitoring committee that will oversee the feasibility of the desisting call is another. The silence of the leadership when the fresh students were mandated to make payment for the fees to qualify for the Identification Card capturing of the university has also proven the unreadiness of the union leadership to indeed advocate for the interest of the students.
The decision of the executives of the Students' Union to postpone the Congress, a resolution of the Students Representative Council (SRC) a few days before the fixed date is another awful step in the terrible path which the immediate past leadership of the Students' Union also treaded. Just as the Host-led administration did by convening the Congress in the seventh week of the first semester when a good number of students, especially the fresh students had already paid, the Oloye-led administration is also trying to implement the same tactic by postponing the congress indefinitely.
It is imperative to note that the present leadership is made up of the same set of individuals who exhausted all their energy to secure 250 signatories to call for another congress within a day to overrule a standing resolution of the congress that the electoral should be suspended a few days to the election that eventually produces this set of executives of the Students' Union.
The silence and lackadaisical attitude of this union leadership towards the case of the three students of the university who are facing the disciplinary council of the university over a peaceful protest against the fee hike is also sending a direct message to the students community that any agitation against the hike of fees is unattainable or unproductive.
The failure of the Host-led administration to implement all the resolutions of the Congress during the course of agitation for the cancellation of all the duplicated and unjustifiable fees in last session which has increased the students lack of trust in the union leadership to successfully agitate for the interest of the student body. This is the same path that the Oloye-led administration is also treading by substituting the congress with the stakeholders' meeting, instructing students to desist from making payments without any clear strategy for success, postponing the congress without any significant reason, and a host of others. It is an unproductive path.
.jpeg)
