By Crystal
On Thursday, 15th of August, the University of Ibadan Students' union released a memo that there would be a congress meeting on Saturday 17th of August 2024 by 7am .
However, on Saturday, 17th of August 2024, the meeting proposed to start by 7 am did not start on time. Instead, the UI'SU President Bolaji Aweda addressed the student body by 8:45am and said that the meeting would start when at least 500 students were around.
Students arrived in large numbers at 11:15am and most of them were 100 level student that were coming from GES 107 test . During the course of waiting, the students expressed that most of them had lost hope in the student union’s ability to mediate between them and the Vice Chancellor to reduce the school fees.
The congress began by 11:43 with the song “Victory Is For Us” led by President Bolaji Aweda. He said that the UI board would release a deadline of the school fee payment after deliberating on reducing the school fees. He called upon the speaker in person of Matthew to address the students and the speaker said that there would be room for the student to ask their questions
The first student to ask a question, Bamide said that the President should apologize to the students for starting the congress meeting late and further explained that if they (SU) had mobilized and made proper awareness, the student would have arrived earlier. He also said that some people paid their school fees before the UI Nigeria education loan fund (NELFUND) intervention and asked about the excess school fee.
The President responded, explaining that he had just 48 hours to organize the congress so he had limited time for publicity. He further clarified that excess school fees would be refunded to the students' personal accounts.
Another student, Olamilekan said, some lecturers insisted students register for their courses, else their test would not be recorded and that course registration required payment of school fees. Olamilekan also asked for the reason the SU promoted the Nigeria education loan fund (NELFUND) to UI students, and challenged the executives to stand up and address the students .
The President responded, saying he would work on stopping lecturers on forcing the students to pay their school fee. Furthermore, he denied promoting NELFUND or the student loan to students and claimed to have only said that Federal government was lending money to students for school fees.
During the congress, the erstwhile SU government supported the current administration when a student, Tunji accused the President of incompetency for failing to reduce the school fees and advised the President to resign if he could not take bold actions. After Tunji's remarks, the past SU government told Tunji that he was wrong and if he had ever been in the President's shoes, he would know that they are trying their best. This caused further serious arguments.
After the back-and-forth, the students chose a representative, Oyindamola to state what they want the outcome of the congress to be. The students also requested proof to ensure that they would not be threatened by lecturers to pay school fees for tests. The students further requested course registration without payment of school fees and if the UI’SU failed to issue a positive memo within three working days, they should resign and the SU government agreed.
While the student requested a promise of protest, the President did not respond. He ended the meeting by 1:30 pm and walked out on the students who were expecting a response about the proposed protest.
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