As We Resume: My Address to the Generality of Great Ife Students, the Noble and Progressive Parliamentarians of the SRC and A Stammering and Divided CEC
In a day, the school would be filled with staleites especially those who have acquired bedspace through the illegal black market. We will return to our bedbugs space that the management has refused to fumigate and when they were eventually forced into it, they did a poor job that on the exact spot where the fumigation spray landed. Some bugs came out to do Shedrach, Mesach and Abedenego before entering the peace of the foam again to wait till the owner of bed lies down. We are resuming soon to the conditions prevalent and a new Vice Chancellor.
If rumors are anything to go by, the new Vice Chancellor sponsored the emergence of a particular notable figure in the CEC. I am predicting that the SUB will become Senate Annex under this dispensation. They will come out to shout with megaphones but do a lot of under-table affair. Great Ife Students have entered one chance! But all hope is not lost, our mass and our strength must stay alive.
We must not let our spirit be broken because OAU is the last ground of activism. If this ground is desecrated, we will as a generation have destroyed a legacy and stained a spotless banner that was handed over to us.
Two articles have been sponsored against my person from quarters I have a good idea where it is coming from. These people having found nothing tangible to attach my name to in form of blackmail and propaganda which are their stock in trade, decided to claim I was involved in the impeachment proceedings of the President and that I am also a Bedspace Honourable. Bedspace honourables are those who contest by investing 200naira to buy form and then get a Bedspace in return. They never attend sittings afterwards. I am not qualified to be described as such. But I am not disturbed if that is what they wish!
On the issue of bedspace, it is the right of parliamentarians as Union leaders to be given Bedspace(in order of priority, management lists Student Union leaders as number 4 in bedspace allocation). In event of actions, interventions and emergency, the SRC is the first point of call.
The mobilisation ALWAYS begins with Parliamentarians before it spreads round the school. Thus, parliamentarians cannot stay off campus. They need to be close to those they serve and also understand their pain.
I took a position on the issue of bedspace because I am reliably informed that a cabal behind the President intends to collect the spaces and after doing so in the name of honourables proceed to sell it in the illegal bedspace market. So, for instance, if they collect 50 and sell each at 40k that's 2million naira for them. They want the return on their investments for supporting him.
They will ensure their loyalists in the SRC are accommodated but they will make sure and go to any length to sell what should ordinarily belong to Parliamentarians. This is a plan I have decided to whistle blow so that people will understand why they have run to the village square to scream my name.
On discovering my objection and foreknowledge of this plan, they ran to the market half-naked to write articles that were hastily composed and poor in depth.
On the issue of impeachment. I will never plot anything against anyone because I have been on the receiving end of conspiracy several times in my life. I know the pain of people conspiring to do evil. I am not aware of it and upon my honour, if at all there is an impeachment plan, I will support it only if there is something concrete. My goal has never and will never be vendetta. I appreciate Francis and Taiwo whose real identity will be exposed like the anus of the fowl when the wind blows.
One of these articles links me with Emerald and Izzieman. Emerald who until recently, we rarely spoke. Izzieman is an "hello friend". The Speaker is someone I knew in my first year, but our friendship never reached a stage where we would plan impeachment. It is very funny that they will raise such an issue.
I also want to inform the Honourables who want to follow the permutation they draw up not to turn our Union to an SUG, we run an SU and it is a pressure group. It is not and will never be a government. Not in my time. If we can't make it better, we will not leave it worse than we met it.
These people emerged through promise and fail. They promised four people the same thing and then pick one person and give him. It was what brought them to power and it is what they intend to keep using. If you think they owe you some sort of permutation. They are traitors. It is what they have always done and what they will continue to do. You owe your loyality to the Generality of Great Ife students alone. Don't let them drag you in the mud with them. Most of them don't even have a good name. They are Union Pensioners.
If they could go as far as releasing propaganda against me and using the office of the PRO to further "pepper dem gang". They will stop at nothing against others. We may have our mutual hatred and dislike for ourselves, but I will not spoil the name of anyone to prove a point. That's where we differ. They soil names to prove points and if they have not come for you yet, someday they would. Like Jimmy Cliff sang "When they kick at your front door, How you gonna come? With your hands on your head, Or on the trigger of your gun?". Don't wait till they ruin your name. Be ready!
"The CEC is always United" that's the lie they make whenever another dirty linen of theirs gets washed in public. We have a President who never attended any Congress or even parliamentary sitting before suddenly finding himself in power. Of course, he should have teething problems and we should help him through this. Not the circle around him filled with opportunists and comrades of robbery. We should help him by letting him know this is not some Polytechnic where he can do as he likes.
I implore members of the CEC to keep remembering that they did not contest on a party platform. They contested individually. Thus, they should blow whistle whenever they see anything strange so that students can separate the wheat from the chaff. On a day when anger and annoyance shall reach its peak, so that they will be passed over. Don't hide under "CEC is forever United" and put yourself in trouble.
Let us remember traditions and remember also that they make us who we are and make our name what it is. We should never forget! Our strength as a Union is in the ability of everyone to take a stand.
A Union leader should be loved by students and this in turn will make him feared(hated) by the management. In this arena, do not look for a middle ground. There is none.
The CEC members should continue in their duty and godwillingly, irorun igi ni irorun eiye. Their success is that of everyone and not a section of us alone.
Before I step aside, I want to raise that some urgent things need to be done such as the codification of the modalities for scientific maximum shishi, a review of the parts of the constitution which are in conflict, an appraisal of where the Union is and where it is going. To steal the Maxim of one of the CEC members, it is an all-inclusive project work.
In finality to the President, I may be one of your best supporters and friends but if only you're doing the correct things. I want to see 11 buses this session, bought and owned by the Union. On the construction of hostels, I say it is an idea that portends either laziness or lack of ideological standing because it will not solve the problem of accommodation. You are a Doctor in training, you cannot use paracetamol for a brain tumor. Accommodation problem is expansive and much more serious than what the hostel can solve. Personally, I will not trust a leadership like yours to execute the project even if I trust other leaderships and I someday concede that the Union can execute such a programme. Why? The stench of your administration is that it has its foundation on corrupt and olojukokoro elements that we were thanking God were leaving the system but you somehow brought back through your victory.
We should tell no lies. We should claim no victories. We should tell it to the people as it is. We should build and not deconstruct based on personal grievances.
Till some other day when my pen writes again. This is quiet for a long time to come. I have run out of ink.
Koye-Ladele Mofehintoluwa
Obafemi Awolowo University,
Parliamentarian representing the prestigious Faculty of Law.