By: Victor Ogunyemi

Three members of the ‘Action Committee’, constituted at the General Meeting of the University of Ibadan Students’ Union, which is the highest organ of the Students’ Union, have on Tuesday, April 30^th, 2024 resigned.

A copy of the 2-page letter, obtained by Indypress, was addressed to the entire students’ community, while copying the two statutory arms of the Students’ Union; the Executive and Legislative Councils respectively.

The three student representatives nominated at the Congress who turned in the resignation are Michael Awoyemi, Aduwo Ayodele and Nice Linus.

Highlighting one of the reasons for the withdrawal from the committee, the three students in the letter noted that the Union’s Executive Council ‘modified’ the fourth stated resolution of the congress, as against the resolve of the congress, which had ratified the duties of the Action Committee to ‘sensitize, mobilize and coordinate actions against the fee increment‘.

“We accepted the nominations on two grounds; (1) that the Action Committee will have the responsibility to sensitize mobilize and coordinate students for mass actions, as resolved at the Congress. (2) that the Action Committee can and will only be disbanded by the Congress regardless of whatever circumstances” the letter reads.

“That the Union’s Executives Council decided to ‘modify’ item 4 of the resolutions of the Congress regarding the duties of the Action Committee to sensitize, mobilize students for, and coordinate mass action is, first, a breach of the authority of Congress and by extension, the Student’s Union Constitution. This act is unconstitutional, a direct violation of the will of the students” the resignation letter further reads.

Also, the authors of the letter faulted the Union’s leadership for creating a committee named an ‘Extended Committee’, which the Executive Council headed by the Students’ Union President, Samuel Samson Tobiloba, had convened to implement the assignment hitherto vested upon the Action Committee, by so undermining the authority of the Congress.

“Frustrating the efforts of the Action Committee by creating another ‘Extended Committee’ to carry out the assignment of the Action Committee by the President is also a breach in the conditions that we agreed to before accepting nominations to the part of the Action Committee” the letter concluded.