UI’SRC: Talk of the 7th Plenary Sitting and the 9th Assembly

Aduwo, Ayodele

The hitherto last plenary sitting of the Students’ Representative Council, University of Ibadan was the seventh under the headship of Rt. Honorable Eniola Olatoye. Held on Friday, the 7th of April, the plenary would remain indeed a significant one in the recent history of the Students’ Union. At that particular Council’s sitting, seven faculty presidents were sworn in as new members of the Council. Also, and of prominence, the day’s 7th plenary sitting marked and saw to the pronouncement of the prolonged judgment of the SRC on the Public Relations Officer, Olalekan Michael Ajibola and the Treasurer of the Students’ Union, Peniel Daniel joint misconducts – for breaching, and complicity of the Students’ Union constitution by the two officers mentioned above respectively. That decisive plenary sitting, worth pointing at, was a product of tedious politics and however is not without some well-noted apprehensions; which should be looked at separately. First, is an estimate of the Students’ Representative Council’s unyielding conduct, and how the ‘lucrative business’ of the Sitting fared.

OF CONDUCT AND CHARACTERISATION

From the incontrovertible fact that the 7th plenary sitting of the current administration has remained the most attended, even by the legislative members, and to the brazen display of the Council’s “saintly honourable members”, who themselves are a worrying discourse; to say their conducts are enough to subject matters and are only a few miles away from the plenary main matters, especially at a Sitting whose biggest concern was to finally sort the rightness and wrongness of the disciplinary activity before it. Going forward, it needs to be known that those who shall hold the gavel, must only do so with an inherently ‘clean hand’ and convincingly. It is on this basis that the UI’SRC 9th Assembly must know that it has lagged in some of her own seemingly little but duly noted displays of internal conduct. Those on the veranda of leadership can only live along the rails of knowledge or paucity of the same possessed. It, from this foregoing, behoves both trust and credibility to prove one wrong and slide into oblivion without some note-taking, regardless of how minute or stout-statured the conduct may be. The least of these observed indecencies is the disregard for the time at every plenary which has never been rightly honoured by the collective membership of the 9th Assembly. Also, the brazen act of phone-calling within the ongoing session of the parliament, and the perpetual reminder of the press presence by the Speaker of the Assembly before floor members of the Council embody proper conduct.

Leaping further also is the self-absorption attribute of the Council almost at every plenary. The current 9th Assembly is such that it ‘discovers’ an article of information, almost at every plenary sitting or verge of decision-making. For effective administration of the Council, or say for the genuine representation of students’ interests, the 9th Assembly must understand each line or provision of the Students’ Union constitution. The conduct of the current 9th Assembly should be worth more than the flips of misinterpretation of the Constitution and sheer disputations. This piece is not asking the Union to think on issues as packed fishes. ‘Total absent of dissent and contention’ Chief Obafemi Awolowo once viewed ‘is possible only in a community of angels or imbeciles.’ The Union however must not do so in ignorance of the provisions of the Constitution. It happened at the last sitting that an Honorable from Mellanby Hall constituency reminded the Council of “Article (VIII), sub-section (iii)” of the Students’ Union constitution, which statutorily provides for the suspension of any member of the Union found of misconducts or breach as it may have been established by the SRC’s Disciplinary Committee. That this provision came to the knowledge of the Council at the seventh sitting point at the severe level of comprehension members of the parliament have exhaustively about the laws of the Students’ Union. That gloated scene on the floor of the House sends a pall of messages that should not be overlooked.

The 9th Assembly and Social Justice in Two Appalling Trousers

The eventual ‘judgement’ of the apex Students’ Legislative arm on the delayed case of the Public Relations Officer, Olalekan Michael Ajibola and the Treasurer, Daniel Peniel is another historical takeaway. Final resolutions were made that the Public Relations Officer should pay the sum of #25,000, apologize to the student’s community and the SRC, and engage in community work at Jaja Health Centre, as a deterrent to the ‘conscious breach’ of the Students’ Union constitution. The 9th Assembly upon its return from recess that same day also mandated the Treasurer, Daniel Peniel to pay the sum of #3,000, as well as to relay her apology to the SRC. This development, one must know has been accompanied by mixed reactions – of special importance, many from the students’ community.

The 9th Assembly, posterity must underscore, particularly welcomed the tedious investigation of her constituted disciplinary committee. It embraced the in-depth analysis and established findings of the Committee, but vetoed all the recommendations of the Committee. The 9th Assembly narrowed her final resolution on the P.R.O and the Treasurer, leaving out all other recommendations of the Committee. It berates intelligence that the 9th Assembly welcomed the entire report, but not the disciplinary recommendations of that same applauded report.

Chairman-ed by Idoko Adoyi, with four other members of that same Committee, the SRC constituted Disciplinary Committee recommended a total, comprehensive reorientation of union officers. The Committee loudly in its report, under the headship of Rt. Hon. Eniola Olatoye, also because of threats to press members recommended that “public notices be issued by the union to remind students of the importance of the press and how it would treat anyone caught threatening pressmen”. The welcomed report did not stop its recommendations at that junction either. It also made mention of the need to ‘engage official graphics designers for the Union who will be responsible for all the Union’s graphic design works including those required by the TV”. Students must know that the 9th Assembly in her courtroom narrowed its justice and may be done with her concern on the issue.

It is in the thought of this author that the 7th plenary sitting, as we can see on the pages of that commendable report, was indeed a travesty of justice; meaning not exhausted, not all round, not finite, and is still on the long walk to justice. The 9th Assembly decisively waved all the recommendations and narrowed its ballots of judgement on the voted sanctions laced on the P.R.O and the Treasurer. This begs for considerable concern as history absolves the 9th Assembly and every bit of her conduct.

Don Vivimus!