By Patrick Ezihe
Bahamian evangelist Myles Munroe once said, “When the essence of a thing is unknown, abuse is inevitable.” The aphorism is a gospel truth and is applicable in many realms of human endeavour. The dictum best apply to the University of Ibadan Students’ Representative Council (UI’SRC). This is important because the new Assembly in the Kunle Adepeju Chamber is home to many first-time members. First timers whose inexperience cannot be accepted as an excuse for any dereliction of responsibility.
Despite the Union Constitution explicitly stating that the Council shall be the policy making body of the Union, the Legislative Council, in recent times, has lost sight of why it ideally exists. Article XXV of the union constitution particularly spell about 14 powers and roles of the SRC. Those fourteen powers are for an instance, underutilised. A decline, so to say, has come to characterize the Union.
Over time, the House has reduced its legislative responsibilities to mere executive budget-cutting, leaving critical concerns unaddressed, often to the detriment of the students. This is often because members of the Council mostly lack clarity of purpose about student representation before purchasing forms for the election that brought them into the chamber. From the tenures of Eniola Olatoye, Omotunde Olamide, and Busoye Matthias, to the Shoge-Quadri led 13th Assembly, the Council seems to have become synonyms of rubber stamp.
The Assembly has perpetually been known for making little or no effort to challenge the anomalies perpetrated by the Executive Committee or shield students from unpopular policies formulated by both the government and the University management. There have been too many examples of these anomalies. A typical case occurred during the tenure of the Eniola Olatoye-led 10th Assembly, when the Students’ Union Public Relations Officer, Olamilekan Ajibola, fondly known as OMA, erred by accepting Union funds into his personal account. Despite acting contrary to the Union Constitution, the Council barely asked the P.R.O to apologise to the students’ populace and fined him a sum of N25,000.
Worse still, the 11th Assembly, led by Busoye Matthias, watched the then Students’ Union Executive Committee, led by Bolaji Aweda, betray the resolutions of the Union Congress opposing the systematization of the fee hike. More troubling, during its swearing-in ceremony, the Assembly watched the UI’3 dragged brutally out of Trenchard Hall. The student activists were dragged out of the venue by the University’s campus security personnel for raising placards with the inscription “#FeesMustFall.” More pathetic still, the SRC never intelligently interrogated the matter. Today, the incompetent leadership that ushered in wave of fee hike brags about being the best of the best on X and LinkedIn. Could the SRC question a matter it wasn’t ready to explore to the best interest of students? The SRC stance was clearly silence and complicity.
Indeed, today’s unionism has taken a materialistic approach. The Students’ Representative Council appears more interested in building political portfolios than in challenging the institutional mechanisms wielded against students. It is why you see them defect from the Assembly to UI’SU Electoral Commission. It is why they nurse future ambitions from a point of underperformance. It is why the argument for end-of-sitting takeaways is often more resounding than specific constituency concerns. It appears that SRC members often leave us with the impression that they need constant prodding to think and act in the students’ best interest.
In many cases, the Council has fostered a culture of silence in the face of challenges affecting students. Chief among them was the relentless rise in tuition fees, which in consequence forced female students to sell their eggs to cover tuition. Others have had to defer their admissions, and many have abandoned their tertiary education altogether. The Council has equally made no official attempt to challenge the recent conversion of kitchenettes into living spaces, despite the development being a clear dismissal of student dignity. The transportation issue on campus has also been left unaddressed, despite the Transport Committee of the Council being saddled with the responsibility of attending to such concerns. There have also been cases of students being extorted by campus vendors. The SRC has failed to assertively also monitor price regulations.
The Council has often been known for total disregard for punctuality at its own sittings. In worse scenarios, it has the unpopular antecedent of postponing sittings due to failure to meet the required quorum, leaving important matters undone – until emergency sittings are hurriedly convened via Google meet. It is safe to say that many members of the Council are more interested in the political dominance of their respective constituencies. They are obsessed with putting their “own” into office without the genuine drive for impactful leadership. There has always been the issue of poor knowledge of the constitution by even SRC members. It is the reason the Executive Committee of the Union perpetrate anomalies and go scot-free; because there is no principled SRC to hold them in check.
As a new session has commenced, the question remains whether the SRC will change course. Will the Council put an end to its disregard for punctuality at sittings? How well will the 13th Assembly deliver its mandate? Beyond budget approval, will it hold the Executive Committee of the Union accountable when it errs? Will it formulate policies that are favourable to students? It is left to the current Council, led by the Speaker Oludele John, to either write its name in gold or in the troubled history of student unionism. The union lacks and need a resuscitation of student interest-based unionism at the level of the SRC. Purchasing SRC forms and contesting elections mean members of the Council volountarily choose to enter into a social contract to represent student interests – even when it is uncomfortable. It is another tenure, students hope for a difference and not a hook-and-sinker council.
