The events of the past week and a half have absolutely exposed, in a way that is getting all too familiar for our student union, the fickle-mindedness of our union leadership and the growing peril our student community is in. From the botched congress to the absolute joke of a release sent out by the SU excos to the impending June 6 deadline, which is breathing heat and pressure down the necks of a lot of students, the drama that has unfolded has been spectacular. The growing level of uncertainty and concerns among the students cannot be overstated. But where to begin?
Two weeks ago, Zik Press released a political article on the superficial calm that has enveloped our student union. In it, we criticised the decision of the executive council members to put less emphasis on active and spontaneous handling of several unique issues, rather deciding to call a stakeholders' town hall meeting. At the time, it seemed like the scheduled congress could be the saving grace of our student union officials, but then the brazen manner in which they handled the congress has proven otherwise. But at this time, it seems like the facade is lifting, albeit slowly, from among us; the veil is being removed, and we are coming to terms with what lies before us.
As part of the SU president Covenant Odedele's campaign promises, among several other things, he promised to represent the interests of all students at all levels, to be accountable to all the students, and also to anticipate and respond to students' needs and demands to ensure continuous improvements. One would have expected him to be more open and receptive to the pleas and pains of the general student populace, because that is exactly what the president of the Student Union is meant to do. The Union is supposed to be at the forefront of the agitations of the issues affecting the students. The union leadership, in fact, is supposed to exist as the mouthpiece of the student. But since their inauguration, Team Auspicious has been failing spectacularly in this regard.
In case you missed it, part of the resolutions of the town hall meeting held by the SU executive council on May 1 is that, depending on the outcome of the consultation with the management on the issue of school fee discrepancies and deadlines, on or before May 10, a congress would be held. This was the first chance the executive council members had to put structures in place to call a congress. They didn't. It was not until the first ordinary sitting of the SRC on May 8 that the representative council invoked its constitutional powers to call a congress. In the days that followed, the silence from the executive council was deafening. And on May 15, the union executive cancelled the congress because three students allegedly attacked them over the matter, and then and there, they began to worry about the further security issues that the students would pose on the day of the congress. Consequently, SRC had an emergency sitting and insisted that the congress be held regardless.
On the day of the scheduled congress, the lack of preparedness caught up with them; mobilisation efforts failed, and the congress couldn't form a quorum. It was unnerving to see that a union that could mobilise students for a party barely hours before could not mobilise the same students to discuss issues of great importance to their welfare on campus. And this begs the question of whether the heart of our students' bodies and their leadership is in the right place, whether pomp and pageantry should take prominence over the academic future of the students. Even if the students are not concerned, are their leaders also not to be bothered? A union that could pump that much money into a fresher's welcome and one-day president shenanigans could not set aside a tiny fraction of that for student mobilisation. At this point, it was not even about making unnecessary inferences; even the blind could see that what the union leadership did was an act of sabotage. They just folded their arms, did nothing and then came out to announce that the next congress would be better planned.
And then, on Sunday, May 25, they (Team Auspicious) sent out a release encouraging students to take advantage of the NELFUND despite claiming to believe that the government "should shoulder sole responsibility for funding tertiary education and loans should not replace it." All the engagements they described in the release were about the student loans or with the NELFUND officials. It is even more interesting that they used the phrase "our resolutions" for something that was not discussed in a congress, making it obvious that they are projecting their own unilateral conclusions over the entire student populace. In their release, at no point did they mention the issue of fee disparity; their vaguely worded "resolutions" only mentioned the extension of the June 6 deadline, the reversal of the #20,000 fine and the acceleration of the NELFUND refund process for affected students. At the end of such a painfully long and uneasy wait, one would have expected their resolutions to at least be direct, but now it is rather difficult to know who is being addressed with these resolutions. The School Authority, the NELFUND officials or the students?
The SRC is once again culpable in this mess. Some of the representatives who spoke to Zik Press could not provide definitive answers on what their constituents and fellow students should expect. Right from the onset, there were honourables who opposed the call for a congress. And when it was eventually botched, there were those honourables who were rather flippant about the whole issue. In their sittings, they are vocal and eloquent about how the executive council is failing, especially when the excos suspended the congress called for by the SRC. But when it comes to making a public face, they'd rather hide meekly and let the excos take all the blame, the same way the speaker of the 12th assembly, Rt Hon. Shoge Quadri, stood behind the SU president on May 17 as the latter announced that the congress was being postponed indefinitely. In the end, it is not just Team Auspicious that is being cruel in its handling of the disparity in the fee increment and fee deadline issue; the SRC is too, by being silent.
Consequently, the student populace is left at a crossroads. If the May 25 SU release is anything to go by, they have to start figuring things out for themselves as quickly as possible. And this fact has created an atmosphere of panic among the students. If the school's memo on the fee deadline stands, students who are still struggling to pay their fee will have to pay an additional fee as a fine for not paying early, which is ironic because they will be paying more for not being able to pay on time. As the last release by the SU has been anything but reassuring, even students who applied for the loans and are yet to be given are left facing the next few days with uncertainty. But of course in the instance where the union president does not value the goodwill of the students he represents, everything begins to fall apart.
