Hostel Fee Hike : UNIBEN Students’ Union Parliament Not Legally Wrong In Dissociating Themselves
By Comrade Pascal A. Agboola – Students’ Advocate
There are certain fundamental things a leader shouldn’t be ignorant of;One would assume that the President of the Student Union of the prestigious University Of Benin would have basic understanding of the English Language but I am not surprised as evidenced by his writeup that obviously was prepared by some form of Generative AI and his poor understanding of words, e.g. ” Coincidentally” already spelling the fact that there is still so much to learn and I am more than happy to provide some extra education as one who is from English and Literature Department.
The word “Coincidentally” is an adverb used to describe events or circumstances that occur simultaneously or in a related manner by chance without deliberate planning. The Oxford Advanced Learners dictionary defines Coincidentally as “in a way that is not planned, but happens by chance” (https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/coincidentally). With that clarified, I would make clear the events that happened that day.
From Reports:
On the 26th of January, The Clerk in the person of Hon. Enwezor Maclean reached out to the President to fix a meeting between Comr. Agboola Timilehin, The Speaker, Rt. Hon Ekeyere Miracle and the clerk to discuss modalities for sitting arrangements. The President said he would be at his office by 3pm that Sunday afternoon. On getting there, The President was in a meeting with his executives that spanned over 2hrs long. At the end of said meeting, The Executives were proceeding to another scheduled meeting. On inquiry from The Speaker, The President mentioned that they were going for a meeting with management that was taking place at Hall 2 and on the issue of Hostel Fees increment.
As this was the first time Parliament heard about this, Mr Speaker and the Clerk followed them to said meeting with the sole interest to see the Dean of Student, Prof. Clement Ighodaro and deliberations and negotiations were made. Contributions were made by the speaker and clerk at that meeting and the conclusion of the meeting was that there would be another meeting by Monday, 27th January, 2025 with senior members of management to further deliberate on the issue; with the benefit of go and think about this increment with other stakeholders. To the best of the Speaker and Clerk’s knowledge, if any other meeting held to that effect, the Principal Officers of Parliament were not included – It is not out to place to say the President is having the management interest and not the students’ interests.
In reference to the memo released by the Student Union Executives on the 5th of February, 2025, extensive deliberations had been going on for weeks of which the Parliament affirmed truthfully that they were not informed of or carried along. If not for the ” *Coincidental* ” presence of the Speaker and the Clerk at the secretariat on that day, it’s safe to assume that we also would not have been aware that any such meeting was taking place.
I am disheartened to see the Union reduced to ridicule by these actions.
As a comrade; it is out of place for the management to go quickly update the kofa over such inconclusive matters, measures have to be taken to bring balance to this increment and eschew greedy students’ representatives at all cost.
The Management should shut down the portal till things are done properly with perfect analyses.
