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Oyekan Ibukun, Dr IBK As OAU Students Union President; The Definition Of Tyranny And Poor Governance -By Oluwadarasimi Samuel

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Oluwadarasimi Samuel

 

A reflection of what history holds for Obafemi Awolowo University Students’ Union and an evidential place of the Union in the community through its tenets and principles as enshrined in its Sacrosanct Constitution is a pointer to the fact that the Union is one which aims at protecting the interests of its member, promoting the general welfare of OAU students and maintaining a healthy and honorable community. However, it also extends to ensuring sanity and uprightness in the state, nation and international communities through quests for a people oriented leadership at all levels and ensuring that all resources are available for all to access for community building giving all humans equal chances of fairing in the society.

On the contrary, the Oyekan Ibukun (DR IBK) led administration has gone far in derailing the Union from its purpose. The administration which commenced its parliamentary session on March 6, 2017 having Oyekan Ibukun (DR IBK), a medical student as president has been one driven by selfish and personal interest in a wheel of dictatorship and tyranny. As soon as the session commenced, the parliament was saddled with the responsibility of instituting committees in line with the provisions of the Union’s Constitution in such regard. However, in what can be defined as misplacement of priority, the president became hell bent on interfering in the selection process of members of the committees and was in pursuant of this so as to have committee membership as compensation for his loyalists for their respective roles played during the electioneering process. Owing to the fact that the Speaker of the Union was from his faction, he made to influence the process but was denied by the Speaker who had his own motives of having such in place. The speaker refused to honor a list of members of the committees as was submitted to him by the president claiming that it was very much unfair of the president to desire an hundred percent membership of all committees and council of the union at his feet. Irrespective of what may be, for fairness to be in place, all ideologies ought to be represented but the case here was otherwise.

On another note, the president as against the provisions of the constitution went ahead dipping his hands into the treasury of the Union, spending every penny of the Union without any budget for such expenditures submitted to the parliament as provided by the constitution. Even in Nigerian government system where things are defined as being so abrupt, expenditures are not carried out without the consent of the national assembly by the executives, howbeit that a pacesetting union of youths and future leaders embark on such height of barbarism and rash action where there is no simple respect for the rule of law.

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The president upon realizing that he could no longer dictate the manner of operation of the parliament thus swore that there would be no successful parliamentary sittings. In this regard, having realized that parliamentary sittings hold in evening hours, he communicated swiftly to the quarters in the school authority to ensure that light is put off on campus every time a parliamentary sitting is convened. So far, the last four parliamentary sittings which held in the evening were cut short by blackout on campus followed by rumble in the dark. This has been all sponsored by Dr IBK with a sole aim of ensuring inconclusiveness of all parliamentary sittings. However, in resilience, the parliament made to setup committees which may be defined as almost the only achievement of the parliament so far. These committees were disregarded by the president who went ahead to lock up all their respective offices and thereafter summoned a congress solely to dissolve these committees. However, while the president was bent on manipulating the congress to his will, the congressmen were fast to identify the mischief rocking from the president and objected his moderation. However, the president shunned all students and declared the congress closed. Shockingly, the following morning, the secretary general released a memo communicating that the president has declared all committees dissolved and the speaker suspended from office. This was largely disregarded by students who found it as null and void as the president by traditions and constitution does not have any sole right to dissolve any committee nor suspend the speaker.

The president after declaring the parliament to a halt communicated to the school management who forced that no hall of residence should host any parliamentary sitting as parliamentary sittings were traditionally held in hostels. Not stopping at that, while the speaker devised a means of summoning parliamentary sittings to hold in the morning on weekends as lights were always put off at night, the president went ahead to sponsor thugs, non-students and cultists to disrupt every attempt to convene any sitting and many students were brutally beaten by men of the faceless world on OAU campus.

So far so bad, the administration has not been able to achieve anything other than a bus which was bought through a scam by spending the union fund without legislative approval on a bus whose receipt of purchase bears an address which was traced to be a no commercial outlet let alone a car dealer’s shop. The bus said to be bought at white house, famia road, Modakeke has been disputed by many as not worth the acclaimed price of 2.5 million naira as shown on the receipt and as such has led to numerous investigations by students . Firstly, while the body of the bus is a Toyota vehicle, its tyre rims are that of a Mercedes benz which points to the fact that the so called tokunbo bus is a locally used vehicle. Also, the address on the receipt was visited by students and was found out to be a residential building which houses no commercial operations let alone a car deal outlet. However, all efforts to call the presidents to answer questions have proven abortive.

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As it stands today, the president has summoned two congresses where he intends to dictate for the generality of students and have been disputed in such but he is hell bent on taking things his way. On several occasions, students have booed the president chanting songs of mockery on him, calling him thief and all sorts and the recent one was at the last congress where he fled as students chased him calling him thief. He was thereafter successfully smuggled off by his bodyguards to safety and was declared wanted by mass of students. Presently, the atmosphere on OAU campus is tense as Oyekan Ibukun Edward (DR IBK) refuses to show himself to students to answer to the probe of the bus and other matters rocking the administration.

 

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