In 2014, the University of Ibadan arbitrarily hiked accommodation fee by a certain percentage. Unfortunately for students of the university at that time, there was absence of a student union with which they could collectively confront the neo-liberal policy that was fashioned against them.
In response to the development, the Hall Chairpersons at the time, without entertaining cowardice, united to critically challenge the situation, advocating for the reversal of the increment. Their collective efforts led to a significant pushback that ultimately proved successful. Today, however, that spirit of student-centered leadership seems to have been lost as the current student leaders remain silent or worse, indifferent in the face of students’ concerns. It is important to recognize that the tragedy of Nigerian student leadership is not merely in the failings of university management, but in the achilles’heel of those elected to stand between students and exploitation. This incompetence not only finds its clearest expression in the actions and inactions of the Students’ Executive Committee, but also the silence of other student leaders, including those who make up the Councils of Hall Chairpersons and Faculty Presidents.
Time and again, in the face of injustice and neoliberal policies experienced by students, many of which fall under their constituencies, these Councils who ideally ought to champion student welfare, have often chosen mutism over the necessity to address their concerns, resorting to acts of tokenism to sway the thoughts of students from age-long problems that have eaten deep into welfare of students.This act of tokenism is not one that is strange to the student community. It has always been a strategy employed by this community of leaders to shut the worries of students for a short period of time, knowing fully well that after their tenures, these problems will subsist and eat even deeper.
For example, in a semester riddled with light and water issues, with the light in different halls of residence ‘tripping’ repeatedly, and in a situation where there could be power outages for days, instead of seeing the Council of Hall Chairpersons coming together to address this issue, they are often seen providing short term solutions like getting a generator to pump water and allow student residents to power up their mobile devices.
The tokenism, by extension, currently reflects in the installation of solar panels. As an attempt to ‘solve’ the issues of terrible power supply and power outages, many Hall Chairpersons have resorted to lobbying alumni and sponsors to help fund solar panel installation in their respective halls of residence. While it is understandable that these installed solar panels may be sustainable, it is important to critically recognize that it doesn’t in fact cover for half of the residential needs of the students. For example, these solar panels do not charge phones and mobile devices, nor do they pump water. Hence, students are taken back to square one with the inconsequentialities.
Every session, accommodation becomes a struggle for students. Several students fight for limited bed spaces, refreshing portals at odd hours with the hope that on-campus residential accommodation does not elude them. For many, the outcome is disappointment. They are left to fend for themselves, forced into overpriced off-campus hostels and apartments, some of which are lacking in basic accommodation facilities. Those “fortunate” enough to secure on-campus accommodation often find themselves in environments unfit for human dignity. Toilets that barely flush, bathrooms that reek of decay, walls scarred by neglect, and electrical systems that pose constant danger. Students have narrated how they queue endlessly just to access water, how they share tiny rooms with more occupants than design permits, and how the “maintenance” of halls is a word more honored in breach than observance.
For female students, the burden is doubled. During teaching practice, industrial training, and clinical postings, many are pushed into hostels that are ill-prepared. Despite all these, the Council maintains silence. No communiqués, no engagement, no agitation. Students raise their voices in complaint, but the very people elected to lend proactive responses to these concerns choose instead to fold their arms.
In faculties, we see Faculty Presidents ignore the blatant state of academics, including poor learning environments and the very short academic semester. Academic life in the University of Ibadan, although seems already adapted to, is one that calls for absolute total reform. Yet, Faculty Presidents and members of their Executive Councils follow the long-standing precedent of neglecting this concern. Tokenism in our faculties doesn’t even end there. Sometimes, students are made to contribute money to fuel the generators so that they are able to hold laboratory practicals during outages
Tokenism has manifested in various actions and inactions that these two Councils have taken in an attempt to camouflage the amelioration of issues affecting students.
It is in the flesh of this tokenism that these Councils have on more than one occasion lobbied the SRC for increment in basic due, citing flimsy reasons as ‘to hold better events and help provide better facilities in the hall of residence, despite being under the jurisdiction of the university’s responsibility.
The Councils of Hall Chairpersons and Faculty Presidents were not created as a lobbyist ‘organisation’ for basic due collection, nor were they created to provide short term solutions to issues that need to be addressed at the root. Its very existence rests on the premise of advocacy, representation, and the protection of student welfare. But contrary to this mandate, these councils seem to only exist when the subject is basic due increment, lobbying the Students’ Representative Council to bring their proposal to a selfish reality. But when it comes to challenging the institutional weapon being fashioned against the student community, they are often nowhere to be found.
They are known for retreating into the comfort of inactivity, leaving students to struggle alone with poor toilet systems, deplorable learning environments, unsafe makeshift hostels, among others. Silence becomes their chosen language. And silence, in this case, is betrayal. The irony is unexplainable. It is pathetic that a Council that could mobilize swiftly and speak with one voice about basic due increment cannot employ the same energy to address the terrible toilets in Indy Hall, the overcrowded rooms in Awo Hall, or the struggles of student residents who are often left stranded during teaching practice or clinical postings as result of inadequate hostel arrangements. Silence is not neutrality. In the politics of representation, silence is complicity. By chosing to remain silent in the face of accommodation crisis and academic struggles of the students, the two Councils choose complicity and betrayal of student trust.
Nevertheless, it is never too late to turn a leaf. The two Councils must recognize the need to treat students’ welfare as paramount. And the best time to do away with the apparent neglect of students’ concerns is now.
