Student Leaders Urge Students' Union To Challenge Rustication And Suspension In Court

FROM THE LEADERSHIP OF THE UNION

Equity and Unity are the foundation; love, courage, wisdom and trust are pillars upon which a just society rests. On the 25th August, 2014 by 4pm, the leadership of the union summoned a meeting of the heads of departments, faculties, religious and other associations to give detailed report, evaluate and seek the yearnings and opinions of their students on how best to further approach the struggle at this critical moment of our history as they are the closest to the students they represent from their respective organization.

The very essence of the meeting is to incorporate all structures on campus as we embark on another phase of the struggle because if attention is given to unity and no affection is given to diversity, our world will experience true peace and progress.

After a detailed verbal report was given by the president of the union which was as communicated to the entire Great IFE students in the official release of the union on 24th Aug, 2014 titled “WELCOME BACK:THE GREAT ARMY OF COURAGE!”, the leaders spoke one after the other and debated the issues critically and the following are their resolved positions:

1. Massive payments made by stale students weakened the struggle and the strength of union leaders in executing it of which started before late registration threat of the management when finalist were paying because of the fear of not securing special electives and accommodation while the union leaders staked their studentship in fighting for students of which the students didn’t solidarized by complying with the None Payment directives given by their leaders to give the struggle a strong leverage.

2. The leaders frowned at the congresses called by the leadership of the union that led to the last set of protests lamenting that they were not representational of their students’ interests but that were peopled and hijacked by certain interests not in tandem with the generality of OAU students.

3. In view of the above, the leaders demanded that more of such meetings of heads of faculties, departments, religious bodies and other associations should frequently be called instead of congress, or better still call for referendum to test the true feelings of the majority of the students.

4. The leaders reiterated that their students won’t welcome any further protest or related actions that are capable of the academic calendar, but enjoined that other effective diplomatic mechanisms should be employed.

5. The leadership of the union should concentrate more on the freshmen fees to get it reduced further and get the management committed to the implementation of instalmental payment and other relief programs.

6. The challenging in court of those of us put under suspension order of rustication and the re-instatement of those suspended should be facilitated in due course.

However the leadership of the union whom are obliged to represent, amplify and magnify the good interest of the entire Great IFE students irrespective of prevailing circumstances such as threat of termination of their studentship by university management shall continue the struggle based on the opinions/wishes of the majority and strongly demur, decry and frown at the targeted victimization of students.

Conclusively, a letter was sent to the university management on 28th August, 2014 to request for the extension of normal registration of which in response to our request late registration has now been extended to 5th September 2014 for all students to have the opportunity of registering.

La lucha sigue... !

Signed
Shittu I. Olatayo
Secretary-General Ibikunle Isaac M. President.