The Era Of Political Infiltration Is Gone: FUMS Made A Loud And Clear Voice -John Oyebanji

I sat on my porch, reminiscing on events that rocked the leadership transition of a union I once held sway over for many months, the intentional attempt to hijack the union from her veritable constituents, disappointing redirection of former comrades, flights of threats, attacks, fabrication of lies and name-calling, among many things. There’s only one constant in life, it’s “change”, each season has its unique way of reminding us of that. These seasons come and go, but one thing that stays with us is the memories we make in them.

Prior to long public silence, there’s only a demand, and that demand forms the basis of my continuous recommendation, “let things be done rightly without any coercion, hijack or forceful imposition”, I wondered if I would have allowed such imposition and conversion of my intelligent self into a dummy, during my days in students’ unionism. The answer is known even to the enablers of these dastard acts, more than “A Capital No”. If that was the answer, why then should other people be subjected to what I would have resisted with every pint of blood within me?

It made me ask my common question – “Is it that difficult to do the right things?” Once the line bordering right and wrong is identified, what developmental modus do we stand to gain opting for the latter above the former?

I read many contorted and reported opinions of past events. Occasionally, I laughed at those deliberate attempts to twist facts, and products of bad history.

Above all of those is a reinforcement that political infiltration and lordship are long gone, and its skirmishes completely laid to rest, yesterday. Others except discerning minds may not identify that, Henry Cloud gave a beautiful thesis in telling that everything has seasons, and we have to be able to recognize when something’s time has passed and be able to move into the next season. Everything that is alive requires pruning as well, which is a great metaphor for endings.

To acknowledge events without the “breaths and sounds” behind them is an incomplete task. The doggedness of Modakeke students was enabled by the Union’s League of Patrons, Matrons and Advisers through their reverence for, and firm stance on the dictates of the union’s constitution. It’s time that these students build upon this solid anti-political-infiltration foundation already laid, resist every attempt to deceptively divide them, and lordship of some persons under the guise of the misused lingual of “stakeholdership”.

While I am by this medium congratulating new leaders of the union on their emergence to steer her affairs for the next months, I have some words for the “unrecognisable minority in the minority” who were lured to destabilize and divide the union with various means, most especially positions. Honour albeit respect isn’t enforced, it’s earned, you can’t forcefully lead people who do not accept your leadership, if literacy is comparable with education, you would have understood why “Legitimacy” exists in the English Dictionary. I will however leave you with a common Yoruba maxim, “Eni ti won ba f’ori re fo agbon, kii duro je nibe”, literally translated to mean “He whose head was used to crack a coconut can’t wait to eat thereof.” What says of your integrity?

Ultimately, till the next moment, I’m compelled to write, I can boldly affirm the unanimous sound I heard from Modakeke Students through these turns of events that the era of political infiltration is gone, a students’ union emerged.

John Oyebanji is a former student leader, a trained Sociopolitical Commentator, Historian, and Educator. He writes from Modakeke, Osun State.
Email: oyebanjijohn00@gmail.com
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