By: Mai Kasuwa
The University of Ibadan Vice-Chancellor, Professor Abel Idowu Olayinka, has single-handedly set the electoral rules for the upcoming students’ union election in the institution.
The VC who unveiled the rules under a tree close to his lodge warned all the electoral commissioners against allowing any beardless student to contest for the presidency of the students’ union.
Olayinka while charging the commissioners to be dedicated in their duties stated, “I should like to say that only students in their penultimate year can contest for the post of president. Particularly, I for one will never allow some beardless students to contest as president or disrupt the relative peace we have been enjoying on campus over the past 2 years.
“As part of your duties, you must diligently scrutinise all candidates and ensure that only those whose beards are naturally grown contest for president. This is a non-negotiable criterion. Any contestant with artificial beards must be screened out outright and his name forwarded to the Student Disciplinary Committee (SDC) for betrayal of nature and impersonation.”
The official release by the VC which was exclusively obtained by a Punocrat reads in part: “All contestants must be on second class upper division. Any student who has attended the SDC in the past, either in person or by proxy, is not eligible to contest. Any student affiliated to one nuisance called Kay Bello is not eligible to contest.”
The decision has caused panic among students especially aspirants whose cumulative grade points average (CGPAs) are only visible through the lens of a microscope.
According to one beardless Oluwo Majekodunmi, an aspirant for the post of president, “I think the VC is just being mean with these rules. I don’t have beards but I have sense. I pray he changes his mind because I have been nursing the ambition to become UISU president since I was a toddler. I don’t know what he wants us to do to change his mind but I am ready to do anything. I don’t mind sweeping and mopping the whole of the Tekana Tamuno building for 1 month or more. He should just change his mind, abeg.”
Meanwhile, one of the commissioners, Abetiofe, who spoke to Punocracy recalled how the VC was sweating while reeling out the said rules. “The VC was unusually sweating like someone who just came out from the oven in UI bakery. His countenance looked like that of a military dictator whose territory has come under attack. I don’t want to compare him with Abacha, but they seemed to have had dinner the previous night,” he disclosed.
Recall that UISU had been suspended on 30 May 2017, after a beardless 200-level student led a peaceful protest to demand issuance of ID cards whose money had been collected for two consecutive sessions without production.
According to unofficial sources, the money generated from the ID cards fees was over N60 million. But delay in the production was caused partly because of clash of interests in the bursary unit and the directorate of ITeMS; as both wanted aggrandised benefits from the contract of the ID cards production.
While the SU was banned, the SU building was shut down and many of its officials were rusticated for various semesters. In fact, termites and other celestial creatures have become officials and dwellers of the offices.
The ban on the union was recently lifted after its first president, T Cool, got married to his Otepu in Augus.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
