If there is one particular period of time since the commencement of the operations of OAU Peeps News Agency that the organization met with serious stifling and its members were attacked by some Union elements, then it was when the Agency relentlessly reported the CGPA saga that ensued after the 2015 SU elections between the erstwhile Secretary General of the Great Ife Students’ Union, Oketooto Oluwaseun a.k.a Hon. Seun and two other contestants for the office of the Secretary General then, Awotiwon Ibiyemi a.k.a Ibiyemi and Adejobi Peter Ola. The press outfit steadily reported events right from the allegation till the case 'politically went down the drain.'
Even though the blatant disregard for the rule of law by the ex-SU President, Omotayo Akande a.ka TY prevailed over the situation at that time, there is seemingly little being done now by the current Show Baba-led Electoral Commission (EC) to address this same serious concern that could turn out to be an issue afterwards.
While I try as much as possible not to spite odd memories which definitely is not in favour of some supposed comrades, I also want Great Ife students to remember or to know (for stale freshmen) that one of the contentious issues that came up during the election hearings held by the Electoral Petition Committee (EPC) then was the definition of CGPA. Pretty good I point out asap; the TY-turned aside valid judgement of the 7-man Adeyemo Akintunde-led EPC also failed to define CGPA in that same case.
Going by the published ‘electoral guidelines for the contestants’ by the Electoral Commission, number 5 of the guidelines read: “Contestants MUST have a minimum CGPA of 2.5 as at the time of submission of this form to be eligible to contest except Part One students for HEC.”
Now the contentious questions once again are: What is CGPA? When is a CGPA obtainable? At the end of an academic session, at the end of a particular semester or at any point in time, as long as I am an active student? Is there any difference between CGPA and GPA?
From my quick check while writing this article, CGPA means Cumulative Grade Point Average. If you still have your student hand book with you, quickly turn with me to page 29 of it; CGPA is defined there as “This is not the summation of GPAs for all semesters. Rather, it is the summation of TCPs ALL SEMESTERS, divided by the summation of TLUs for the said semesters...”
Apparently, arguments in some quarters that the CGPA expected from contestants by the EC for this election is that obtained at the end of Rain semester of the 2014/2015 academic session is wrong. Instead, contestants are required to proceed to their various departments and get their CGPA as at the end of the Harmattan semester of the 2015/2016 academic session.
I have never been a fan of using CGPA to measure the administrative and leadership quality of students and I don’t think I will be any time soon, for certain reasons and several situations I have witnessed. However, since the rule of the game insists on a CGPA of 2.5, then what is worth doing is worth doing well. The last Union executives had a faulty foundation and an ugly start after the last election but we have the option of avoiding a repeat.
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