"What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others." – Pericles.
With the mystical postponement of the prior election scheduled to have been held late last year still drip-flesh on everyone’s memory, students of Moshood Abiola Polytechnic are again confronted with the ultimate decisive moment of whom to confer the mandate of steering the ship of the students for the next academic session.
The forthcoming Students Union (SU) election is one that should see the continuance of the use of Electronic Voting after the last one saw the incumbent Owoiya Razak a.k.a Owomummy elected as the President of the SU, an election that saw the renaissance of unionism back on campus after the proscription of the SU by the School management on the heels of the squalid absconding of 2 million naira funds by the ‘inglorious’ Segun Glorious adminstration in the 2014/2015 session.
While it is yet an endless argument on the impact either palpable or impalpable the incumbent administration has been, the social media communities that lodge most students of the school have inexorably been deluged with the heavy politicking of the two and only gladiators for the loftiest seat in the SU.
Comparable to the dexterous politicking that is existential in the mainstream politics of the country, the aspirants have also not been losing any sleep in ensuring that they ingratiate themselves comfortably with the students, as such winning the expedient votes for triumph on election day. Such political game plan has seen the forthcoming election arguably be largely reckoned to be the only election in the annals of the school’s unionism history that has employed the heaviest usage of social media.
While one has been about fast tracking developments of varied kinds in the school the other is out to restore the dignity of the prestigious institution while asserting with aplomb that a new Mapoly is feasible. All these are expected and certainly not a far-cry from what a political campaign in a bid for political positions should appear like. However, the bane over time has constantly remained the reality of ‘walking the talk.’
While I incurably stand for everyone and for no one, it is imperative the two aspirants who either of them is most likely to ascend the seat of the MAPSU president for the 2018/2019 session come to realize before dawn that the beauty of a tree goes beyond the nomenclature it is christened. They shouldn’t get carried away with their noble names and get down to work as soon as they get into office.
It is indubitable that the school has been crisis-ridden for sometime now, one that has seen durable strike actions embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics, MAPOLY Chapter to the detriment of students’ academic programme alongside other unsavoury sundry issues it has been confronted with in recent time – a sharp contrast to the hitherto enviable reality of the school. Therefore, irrespective of the current relative flicker of light borne out of the just concluded Ogun Gubernatorial election that seems to be enscosing itself to the glee of the hunk of the students populace, all logic dictates that the forthcoming administration inevitably has its hands full before assumption of office.
Factually, Students Unions were established in various institutions of higher learning to promote unity, orderliness and smooth relationship between students, school authorities and the state or Federal Government. Hence they can be alternatively referred to as the voice of the students to policies and projects that hold expedient benefits for the students during their studentship. It is widely expected among the students community that the SU should represent their best interests at all times and resists being at the receiving end of draconian actions intermittently ensuing from authorities governing the institutions.
Unfortunately, across virtually all public institutions in the country, the SU has been found of pandering to unethical and mercenary acts that are reprehensible of the office they occupy. Acts such as embezzlement of funds, incitement of violence, intimidation and harassment of other students, woeful implementation of policies among a score of others.
MAPOLY has chronically had its own share of the swirling cyclone of maladministration that has protagonized the SUs in Nigeria, but gazing at us is a new Vista to be the beacon of a new narrative to that regard. It is on that illustrous note, I beseech the eventual winners of the MAPSU Election to eschew the lure that the past SUs executives have fallen prey to that has seen them become a monument worthy of contempt as opposed to the established hopes hibernated by their faithfuls upon assumption of office.
"The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones." – William Shakespeare. Truth is that names of people are seldomly remembered, what is are their works. A word is suffice for the obedient.
Efosa Taiwo
Mass Communication