A heavy cloud of skepticism and student dissatisfaction hangs over the Association of Faculty of Arts Students (AFAS) following the Faculty Legislative Council’s (FLC) final approval of the executive administrative budget for the 2025/2026 academic session. At the centre of the brewing spendthrift is a cumulative sum of ₦108,000 strictly allocated to fund the airtime and mobile data subscriptions of certain members of the executive council.

While the student electorate has aggressively pushed back against the allocation, labeling it an unnecessary luxury in a period of economic hardship, the executives maintain that digital connectivity is an indispensable logistical tool required to govern the faculty effectively.

The Anatomy of the ₦108,000 Communication Fund

A close look at the final approved budget reveals a lopsided distribution of the communication funds among the executive offices. Rather than a flat distribution, the allocations were determined by the perceived communication demands of each desk. The Director of Information and Publicity, serving as the Public Relations Officer, walked away with the lion’s share of ₦53,000, which comprises ₦5,000 for direct calls and ₦48,000 to cover an eight-month data subscription. Following this, the office of the General Secretaries secured ₦20,000, while both the Vice President and the Financial Secretary received identical allocations of ₦15,000 each. The remaining communication funds were evenly split between the Director of Sports and the Director of Social and Welfare, who were each granted ₦10,000 to maintain their digital operations.

Notably, the office of the President received ₦0 for personal data or airtime in the approved budget, while the Treasurer, Emmanuel Udoeyo stripped himself of communication funds entirely and channeled into transportation. This leaves the remaining six offices to consume the ₦108,000 communication wallet.

Legislative Duty

According to inner legislative sources, the FLC had to aggressively swing the axe because several executives completely failed to defend the necessity of their requests during the budget defense.

Parliamentarians noted that the “association’s purse wasn’t smiling despite having an abundance,” forcing the house to cut down the totals to the currently approved figures. However, the fact that the house approved any communication data budget at all for almost the entire executive council has done little to calm the nerves of the student body.

The Executives Speak: Logistics, Tools, and the Reality of Accountability

Behind closed doors, the executives have mounted a vigorous defense, arguing that these funds are not a personal luxury but a logistical necessity. When confronted with student rumors that the money would be diverted to personal use, the executives provided distinct arguments based on their departmental duties.

The Vice President: “It is to Augment Things We are Doing”

The Vice President strongly defended the allocation as an essential tool for cross-departmental coordination. She explained:

“For me as the Vice President now, with this special work, I’m in need of airtime to call vendors, to call people, to call committee members, to call people like, ‘Okay, why are you not here? Why have you not brought this?’ That’s the service of the Association, not my personal office work.”

She also explained that the allocation is also an appreciation of her dedication:

“It’s like an appreciation for our dedication to the association. And then, I want to say that, with or without the approval of the airtime and data, we are still going to run the office, and obviously I’m still going to buy my personal data. But I think that one is just to augment things that we are doing.”

Addressing the dual-use dilemma of personal vs. official browsing, she conceded that strict tracking is functionally impossible but argued that the approved amounts don’t even cover their total executive overhead:

“Number one, we both know that’s not possible. Because I cannot decide like, ‘Oh, today is only association things I want to do.’ It is not possible… But I want to say that, even the amount they approved is not enough… So, let’s just say that the part, my own money that I added, is being used for my personal… and the association’s own that I added is for the association’s.”

The Treasurer: Shifting Systems and Urgent Demands

Though the Treasurer ultimately reallocated his communication line item into transportation, he strongly defended the institutional need for such funds based on modern banking realities. He pointed to the faculty’s digital transition as a massive data consumer:

“In my administration, I feel the budget for airtime and data is necessary because as a treasurer, there are many things I have to do with airtime and data… Due to the online system that is being introduced, implemented in this tenure, there is a constant need to always go online, check payment, check transfers, and confirm payments from AFASites and all of that.”

He added that airtime is crucial for bridging the communication gap with faculty staff:

“And I do, for the airtime, I do phone the staff advisers like I’ve mentioned before, because as lecturers, they are most times not always online… Sometimes, some things are urgent, you need to phone them. They don’t always view WhatsApp messages when you chat.”

When pressed on whether he could provide an exact receipt down to the last Kobo, the Treasurer noted the volatile nature of data pricing but promised transparency:

“Airtime and data is not something that is that fixed… Depending on one’s purchase system, if I were to be buying data in this little quantity, it may vary at some certain points… But I promise that I will make good use for the airtime and data that concerns my office, in a way that concerns my office.”

The Sports Director: Heavy Designing and Dual SIM Strategies

The Director of Sports offered a highly technical justification, revealing that a large chunk of his data budget goes directly toward supporting the Public Relations desk through visual content creation:

“I, as the sports director, apart from the PRO, I do graphics for matches and also… for example, when we have a competition, I used to do the graphics. It takes a lot of time. I am using Canva. Canva uses more data to design… and it’s not like just one design… you have to do different graphics for each match.”

When questioned on how he keeps his personal life separate from his official duties, the Sports Director claimed to use hardware separation to remain perfectly accountable:

“On the aspect of airtime, like I have two SIMs I’m using… and I have one for my major use, and I will also use the other one like for making… the calls to like all the, you can call it students like, strictly to make enquiries, so as not to mix everything up. So, I can give a proper account of the amount disbursed to me.”

The Secretarial Compromise: “We Still Have to Be Considerate”

The General Secretary’s desk illuminated the friction between the executive branch and the parliament. Tasked with administrative oversight for two separate offices (General Secretary and Assistant General Secretary), he argued that their approved ₦20,000 was already a massive compromise:

“I proposed 30K for both data and airtime for two offices: General Secretary and Assistant General Secretary. And if you like, if you want to go through the budget and want to like check it well, you’ll observe that it’s supposed to be more than that, right? But then, you know, we still have to be considerate… From the 30,000 Naira that I raised, they just approved 20,000 Naira.”

He also flatly dismissed the idea that an executive can cleanly switch off their data the second an official task is completed, citing technical limitations:

“I’m using iPhone, so I don’t have two SIMs that I’ll say that, okay, my Airtel will be for Faculty of Arts data, while my MTN will be for my own personal use, that, okay, after the letter, let me switch, as Android users does, so that cannot be possible, actually.”

The 2024/2025 Precedent

To put the current ₦108,000 communication budget into perspective, there is need to point to the financial records of the immediate past 2024/2025 administration.

In the previous session, the entire proposed administrative budget across all eight executive offices, covering transport, printing, welfare, and tools sat at just ₦322,970. This means that this session’s approved airtime and data budget alone constitutes more than ⅓ of the previous administration’s entire operational budget. Last session, the office of the Director of Information and Publicity requested a total of ₦29,000 for communication; this session, that single office is walking away with ₦53,000.

Intriguingly, an interview with a past General Secretary, the current President, Adeyefa Ebenezer, reveals that data allocations weren’t always viewed as a mandatory standard. Reflecting on his previous tenure, he noted that he initially plan to run his office entirely out-of-pocket before even learning a budget system existed:

“I don’t know that there is a budget for excos, sincerely speaking… I thought everything that will be done, that it was my, that was what I had in mind, that I will be using my money and I was really ready for the game… Thankfully, when I got there, even though I later used my money to do a lot of stuff, when I got there, I realised that at least they would give me money.”

However, his perspective on the data allowance is grim, characterising it as a political booby trap:

“I realized that it was a trap. That money is just a trap, there’s nothing there, it cannot even cater for anything… I just decided that, okay, I’m actually here to really serve, I’m not really here to collect anything. So, why do I want to collect data that cannot even solve any problem?”

Student Backlash: “Public Office is Not for Satisfying Cravings”

The reaction from the general student body has been a mix of indifference and intense displeasure. Many AFASites view the communication fund as a blatant sign of administrative entitlement, misappropriation, and greed. The core argument within the student body rests on two major pillars: the precedent set by past leaders, and the availability of institutional resources.

“Allocating money for data plans for the executive is absurd,” stated Kemisola, a 300-level student. “The last administration was able to handle the faculty effectively using their own data. This current administration is not yet up to 5 months, and the money in the faculty purse is being used for something minute. I feel that the money should be used for something that will benefit all AFASites, and not for the comfort of the executive.”

A 200-level Philosophy student echoed these sentiments with even harsher words, questioning the transparency of both the executive arm and the parliament that sanctioned the funds:

“It is extravagant spending, and being able to give valid reasons for why what they request for is needed, and also the fact that the FLC approves it, portrays they support irresponsibility and greed. What sort of information are they passing that they need such an amount of money for data? What do they actually take us for?”

The student further pointed out a glaring institutional alternative:

“Let them use the money for better things instead. If they need to pass any information or create any content, they can use the Wi-Fi from the faculty. The dues paid are meant for the whole Faculty of Arts, not for the comfort of the executives.”

The Price of Connectivity

The executive council finds itself in a defensive position. The underlying counter-argument from the executive council is that student governance in the digital age requires constant online mobilisation, swift dissemination of official releases, and digital coordination that extends far beyond the physical walls of the faculty buildings and outside the operating hours of campus Wi-Fi.

However, as students decry the approval of this budget, the administration faces an uphill battle in public relations.

The ₦108,000 communication budget has become a symbol of a deeper structural debate within AFAS: Is an executive’s data plan a modern necessity for transparent governance, or is it a slippery slope toward administrative comfort at the expense of the student populace?

This exclusive story was first published by AFAS PRESS