OAU VC Gives Reasons For The Delay in Students' Union Reinstatement

Oladeji Olaniyan 

The Vice Chancellor of Obafemi Awolowo University, ile-ife, Osun State, Professor Eyitope Ogunbodede has given reasons for the delay in the reinstatement of the Students' Union body.

He made this known during a round table discussion with Editors in Chief of all News Agencies on Campus under the aegis of Association of Campus Journalists (ACJ) which was held at the Senate building of the University on Tuesday.

The Vice Chancellor, Professor Eyitope Ogunbodede said the reason for the delay in the reinstatement of the Students' Union is due to the unworthy precedence left behind by the past Students' Union leaders.

Recalling the fracas that sprung up during the Ibunkun led administration and the mismanagement of funds, he said "if you can remember during the last students' union administration, the president called a sitting with the parliament while the principal officers were absent which led to the president being beaten up by students."

"And after the suspension of the Students' Union, I asked the Dean of Students affairs to block the account of the students' union to hinder them from withdrawing but we discovered they had withdrawn all the funds in the account. This gave me a bad impression of the Students' union leaders and I don't want this to continue" he said.

In the same vein, the Vice Chancellor made it known that he has the intention to reinstate the Students' union stating that there are some elements among the students practically delaying the reinstatement due to their inimical actions towards the process.

"I want to reinstate the Students' Union but there are some set of students who are less than twenty in number, called the left. They are the ones working against the reinstatement of the students union. They think they have the power to reinstate the students' Union but they are the ones working against the reinstatement through their actions and it pays them to do so. This people can not win students' union election yet they are disrupting the process. Whenever there is peace they induce something to disrupt it," he said.

Further more, The Vice Chancellor made it known that the current crop of students who are currently parading themselves as students' leaders are not worthy to lead the students because they lack the leadership acumen to lead the students. Hence, he would not reinstate the Students' Union until the students have worthy leaders to lead them stating that the university is working on organizing a leadership training for all the students to aid them in leadership positions

" if you look at the current crop of people parading themselves as leaders, they are not worthy of it. Also, it is good for the University to have befitting leaders because the this current ones are not good enough. That is why we are trying to organize leadership program to train the students. To build a good Students' union leaders so as to avoid a repetition of what happened in last administration," he said.

He also urge the association of campus journalists to assist the management in devising means for the Students' Union to have worthy Leaders.