9th April, 2015
Damilare Okunola
Students’ unionism was dead at the University of Lagos, UNILAG, Akoka, Yaba, Lagos for over a decade with many thinking it may never return. However, the ban on unionism was lifted late last year and the students went to the polls on Thursday, 26 March, 2015 to elect new officers to run the affairs of the school’s students’ union for the next three years.
University of Lagos Students Union, ULSU, was the name on many students’ lips the moment the School’s VC, Professor Rahman Bello, lifted the ban.
P.M.NEWS Campus Square was present at the voting centre and observed that some of the students were disallowed from entering the premises of the Sports Centre.
When our correspondent asked to know what was happening, Dr. Alabi Soneye came forward to make a clarification.
Soneye, the Chairman, ULSU Electoral Committee, said the election would go down as the freest and fairest in the history of the institution because of how they handled the electorate.
“As you rightly observed, the security on ground was watertight because we did not want any form of argument to cause an uproar in the process. “It went smoothly and everything ended well. The students you met outside had either voted or were not eligible voters. That was why they were disallowed from coming inside the Sports Centre,” he patiently explained.
Our correspondent gathered also that students’ representatives were drawn from 12 faculties and 54 departments within the institution.
Explaining the process further, Soneye said: “we used the electoral college approach and we are looking at test running the Union’s Constitution which has been in existence since last year.
“I can assure you that this election was free and fair and stands out as the best in the history of the school since the inception of students’ unionism.
“In fact, the students had started congratulating one another before the results were officially released. They had started shaking hands immediately the process had been concluded.
“The conduct of the students was really encouraging and I can say that this will be a prototype for subsequent elections.”
With a total of 599 votes, Martins Abiodun from the Faculty of Education beat two other candidates- Hassan Olalekan (Faculty of Science) with 320 votes and Oshin Shola (Faculty of Law) with 305 votes to emerge as the new president of ULSU.
Babalola Oluwafemi Paul polled a total of 704 votes to win as the Secretary General of ULSU; the office of the Public Relations Officer(PRO) was clinched by Adegunoye Charles with 492 votes while Olasinmi Oluwafemi, with a total of 651 votes, won the race for Welfare Secretary 1.
Michael Opadoja, Enitan Oguntola was returned unopposed to emerge as the Social Director and Financial Secretary respectively.
The swearing in ceremony of the newly elected leaders by the Vice Chancellor is billed to hold today, 9 April.