Vice Chancellor Prof. Eyitope Ogunbodede has inaugurated Students’ Electoral Commission and Students Electoral Petition Commission. He did this in fulfilment of his promise to reinstate students’ unionism at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife.
Following this, Ogunbodede mandated the Division of Students’ Affairs to set in motion concrete steps to achieve installation of vibrant and more articulate students’ unionism and charged the Dean of Students Affairs, Prof. Isiaka Aransi, to sensitise the students on the need to see and nurture the union without rancour.
He enjoined the students to see unionism as an incubating stage of socio-political leadership where they could learn rudiments of how the people, states and nations are governed.
Speaking on behalf of the University management, Aransi said that OAU students’ activists should emulate their counterparts in developed world who engage management in dialogue in order to meet the academic and welfare needs of fellow students. This, according to him, is done through the union investment drives, provision of scholarship, work and study programmes, among others.
Speaking on the two electoral bodies, Aransi, said the expectation of the University community was for the Electoral Commission to conduct free, fair and credible elections while the Electoral Petition Commission is to handle all complaints arising from the election, with high sense of duty and decency, without fear or favour.
Present at the occasion were the Deans of faculties, students across departments and members of the University community.