THE INAUGURAL SPEECH DELIVERED BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE GREAT IFE STUDENTS’ UNION, OMOBORIOWO DAMILOLA ISAAC ‘DR BUSH’.
TITLE: NEW DAWN AT OGBAFEMI: “THE GROWTH OF GREATNESS, THE REDEFINED PURSUIT OF EXCELLENT UNIONISM”
SALUTATIONS:
Greatness Greetings on this historic day to the best of people, here seated.
The Vice Chancellor, sir, it gladdens my heart to welcome you today. This is your second Students’ Union inauguration in office. Thank you for the show of understanding and active contributions to the union and the university at large. It is our hope, as vested in me by the mandate of the students, to see you extend even more of a helping hand to the Refining Greatness Administration.
The DVC Admin, our father, Prof. O.M.A Daramola. People, especially students, wouldn’t believe how much sacrifice the administrative unit of this university puts into keeping things running smoothly. I extend warm appreciations, sir, and hope that things get even smoother moving forward.
As a matter of fact, everyone knows how much of an academic fanatic I am, oh in a good way, please. Or let me say academic aficionado. It is evident in my personal story. But we won’t be talking about that today. Maybe you will read the full story when I finally settle to write a book before the end of my administration. Anyway! This is me first, acknowledging Prof. M.O Babalola, DVC Academics. This campus’s main constitutional purpose is academics. By and large, we have raised academic giants all thanks to the great work of your office. We shall, by collaborating with you, ma, get even further ahead in the very near future. Put up a round of applause for her please!
For us, the Central Executive Council, we are very proactive. We’ve started work before today and many of us here are witnesses to that. Some days back, the Central Executive Council attended the OAU EXCELLENCE AWARD IN RESEARCH & ACADEMICS in this prestigious hall. That was on the 30th of July precisely. I mentioned in my speech how we are only great as much as our continuous thirst for researching innovative ways of improving our educational impacts. On this campus, we have Prof. A.I AKINYEMI, Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research, Innovative & Development) to thank for that. Thank you very much for honoring us to be here. It is a pleasure to have you sir and we shall hope for your support all year long.
Shall I go on and on? I may spend the whole time saluting great men and women here present. But heaven would judge me if I at least do not personally recognize the following persons:
The Dean of Deans, I appreciate your presence, thank you very much, sir!
The Dean and the Vice Dean of the division of Students Affairs
The Provost, College of Health Sciences!
Thank you very much for all you do for the benefit of students, and thank you in advance for the many more things you’ll still do. And finally, accept my warmest recognition of the Electoral Commission headed by Mr. Ogunperi Taofeek. Conducting elections is no easy task and we are all witnesses to their efforts. May the books of history be kind to you and your team. Shall I congratulate you and other graduates on successfully succeeding as students on this campus? I’m sure the VC will have reservations. The governing council has not pronounced you graduates yet. But congratulations anyway. May your path forward be of ease.
Of the Greatest Ife!
I know you know why I am saluting the students last. Saving the best for the last. I am a man of the people’s mandate, or call me a man of the people as Chinua Achebe titled one of his greatest pieces of literature. Every other thing in my address will be about the students, will be about you and me, so don’t let me spend much time here. And please, accept my most humble Idobale. Now, permit me to take a little back in time.
THE NEW DAWN
My friends, my agents, my well-wishers were scattered all over campus. As darkness slowly blanketed the atmosphere, some went back to their various hostels, on and off campus. It was already a tiring day for me. But it was not typical. Unlike most days when I return from the hospital tired to just push through the day, I was energized. I don’t even know where the energy came from. My hormones were hyper, adrenaline, but with a mix of serotonin because even without knowing the results yet, I was happy. Enveloped in love, not even the shege of med school or the years of seeking admission has moved me close to tears like the series of events that led to the election.
That historic evening, some of my friends and my campaign team gathered around me and we kept moving to polling units, one at a time. It was not until 1:50 AM that we got to the Faculty of Tech to observe the counting of the votes. By the time we were done there, it was almost dawn. The closest unit to Chem Eng, if you know how to wriggle around campus, was Agric. The inconsistently spaced streetlights and those from different buildings guided us to the Faculty of Agric. We passed through the fountain area and observed the counting from behind the locked iron door and through the veranda.
As if it were a Nollywood movie, the faraway results from the Faculty of Administration dropped as we waited hopefully while discussing with folded arms as shields from the cold. Immediately those results from Faculty of Administration were released, there was tension in the air and I had to crack a joke to ease the tension. Some 10 minutes later, the situation was clear. We were winning Agric and by an unexpectedly wide margin. About 30 minutes after the admin results were released, we had fully counted in Agric. There was wild jubilation in the air, the roar from about 17 of us could be heard in Spider, Moot Court, and maybe even Biological Sciences if they cared to listen. I was lifted, the light Madrid jersey I wore could not stop the cold, but the heat from the jubilation exercise was more than enough to keep me going. I didn’t even notice it was a cold morning.
It is an iconic moment because where we jubilated was the very spot where this university holds convocation ceremonies in the past when the current Faculty of Agriculture building was occupied by the university authorities as the Senate Building. Not many people know that.
We moved back to the Faculty of Science to seal the win. The news was everywhere. It was dawn, a new one at that, at the prestigious Obafemi Awolowo University. We won the election and the voices of thousands of students were loud and clear, they wanted us to refine the Greatness of OAU Unionism. They want us to set new standards using our roadmap. They want Dr. Bush. They want Damilola, Isaac Omoboriowo. Ever since, the air we breathe on campus has changed to that of hope. And today, we officially begin the journey.
THE GROWTH OF GREATNESS
Permit me to blow my own trumpet a little. “We ran an issue-based campaign like never seen before since the return of the students union on this campus.” Most are not even close. We have promised to touch every aspect of student life from academics to welfare, healthcare, career building, social life, sports inclusivity, and many more.
Today is not for us to lay bare all of these plans all over again. However, I would love to walk you through a general method we wish to employ and deploy in achieving some of our novel ideas.
A common issue we have noticed and can testify to how much it affects students is the cleanliness of halls of residence. Both on campus and in the Maintenance hostel. General cleanliness of students’ residential areas is very important and every detail, till the last, must be taken care of.
Before I continue, this reminds me of Heritage Ajibola, the lady that met her unfortunate end in a certain hostel in maintenance in 2021. Please let’s hold a minute of silence for her. May her beautiful soul find peace, eternally.
So, after our observation, we have thought that the steps we will take will be as follows: Gather details about the situation from the students’ perspective. This is for us to uncover the issue beyond the obvious. Know what students in these halls of residence think the issue is.
Engage the hall of residence managers to understand how they’ve been managing the situation and the role they’ve been playing before now. From here, we can easily spot the differences between expectations, see where we can conclude that the students living in the hall fall short, if any, and where the managers are not doing enough.
Then we raise a committee to develop a policy document and implementation strategy. This will be done in conjunction with working with the necessary university authorities.
Implementing aggressively.
Making such implementation a part of our culture and ensuring we put a sustainability plan in place. If you observe the above-listed action steps very well, you will note it very much agrees with the students’ union maxim of “3Cs of Aluta.” Only this time, we actively participate in getting the solution up and running instead of just leaving it to the authorities and confronting them about it.
The cleanliness of halls of residence, for instance. Several complaints have been passed over the years by students year in year out across all halls of residences. There are times the Students’ Affairs has sent reps to halls to observe the situation and try to make improvements. So we must ensure they work things out better for the benefit of all parties involved.
However, it is also very important for me to state categorically that by mentioning today that we will be working very much hand in hand with the university authorities, it doesn’t mean we will be in bed with them.
The union will never outsource crafting solutions under our administration. We shall actively be a part of the solution. We shall leave nothing to chance and we will do our best to improve everything that concerns students’ lives.
This is how we can grow the greatness of this campus and the onus lies on you and me to make it work. Don’t segregate the union as the check and balance to the power of the university authorities, rather as an integral part of the working system that must, must keep up with solution seeking, solution refining and solution execution. Great Ife shall forever be great!
04. THE REDEFINED PURSUIT OF EXCELLENT UNIONISM
Ladies and gentlemen present here. We are all sons of the soil. Oh, and daughters of the soil before you accuse me of what I don’t know about.
Except you’re someone like me, the average time you’ll spend on this campus is between four to five years. And if you remove the breaks, forced or otherwise, you probably won’t spend more than three and a half. What does this tell you?
As student leaders, we must architect the administration of the union in such a way that immediate gains are realized without jeopardizing future sustenance, years after we are out of these walls. We must be visionary implementers that make no shortsighted decisions. We must be harvesters for the current generation of students and farmers for future generations we may never see. They will forever be grateful for our wise decisions, our foresight-fortified execution, and future-foretelling roadmaps.
Our immediate plans as we enter office are numerous. I shall highlight some of them here categorically:
ADMINISTRATIVE
Greatest Ife, Articulate Ife. Can you remember what I mentioned while greeting Professor Daramola earlier? Administrative tasks are the very core of the success of any form of governance, and we shall dedicate a lot of our efforts to creating a sustainable administrative model that will be admirable, resilient, and transparent. We will not only be accountable, we will strive to compete on the international scale, and set new continental standards.
The following are some of our immediate plans: Creating a responsive union website with a well-structured organizational layout.
Working with policy documents on all our plans. Such policy documents will, at specific stages of development, pass through experts/thought leaders in the relevant field as well as through public opinion to ensure they are practical.
We shall also work very diligently with the Students Representative Council to achieve set goals that benefit the student populace. From a brilliantly developed appropriation bill to issue-specific executive bills, we will pioneer new frontiers in executive-legislature relationships in our history.
Localization of Functions – we shall work together with Hall Executives to redistribute and localize functions. This will ensure a proper connection to the reality of things, exhaustive deliberations, and frictionless execution.
Similarly, we shall establish a deep-rooted connection with faculty, departmental and indigenous associations. Our network will be wide enough to consider each association an extension of the Students Union and not a standalone, isolated unit. The benefits are immense, and only time can reveal how much the university community will benefit from our strategic, profit-for-all administrative plan.
Finally, we shall take documentation very seriously. Going back in time and making available vital information about our union will be the order of the day.
HEALTHCARE
Many of you know bits of my story, at least those I made public. I have been on this campus for a, if we’re being honest, very long time. But, that categorically makes me one of the most experienced persons to take care of so many things on behalf of students. In my time on this campus, I have witnessed several great moments, and a couple of others that can’t but leave a bad taste in the mouth anytime we remember them.
One of such was the death of the young star who met his demise on the football pitch in the sports complex on 17th of May, 2019. Who here remembers? Omotola Akorede Kayode
Again, we shall observe a minute of silence for him, this time, while standing and for all others who have passed on this campus due to one health reason or another.
I want to urge the university authorities to lend a hand in solving, completely, all issues related to our health center. From the ECG testing to the radiology unit of the center and even the delivery of service, which has made so many students stop seeking out help at the center.
Improving the relationship between the teaching hospital and the health center is equally sacrosanct. We shall also follow up on the health insurance scheme for students from the university all the way to the federal government if we have to.
Again, I have been briefed on the case of a student, who happened to be an avid fitness fan and a skater, who unfortunately died by his own hands in a very recent development. We have noted before now how important mental health is to our leadership, and we shall do our best in developing a mental health proactivity framework that will serve the entire student populace.
Finally, before I move on from the discussion on healthcare, I have observed, with a heart full of sadness, the lack of both first aid facilities and first aid knowledge across campus. We need them in our halls of residences, sports complex, in the swimming pool, in this hall right here today and every other day there’s a gathering, likewise Amphitheatre and at PIT too. For those doing constant practice in hopes of being a shining star of Great Ife origin, and people that come to enjoy their progressively beautiful performances.
All of these and in fact, many more are what we will work on concurrently as we resume office today. Ladies and gentlemen, at this point, I wouldn’t carry on talking about this from section to section. I will need you to stay tuned to our policy documents.
But before we conclude, I need to say how important global gender issues are to me. From sexual harassment to gender based violence, we shall create awareness around them and work towards bridging the gaps.
Finally, I want to urge all and sundry to be security conscious during this period to avoid devastating loss of properties. We shall curb all form of thievery on this campus. There are no hiding places for terrible people.
I’d love that you can get the Great Ife anthem ready. As I conclude this, let’s sing with the highest level of conscious dedication we’ve ever given to this sacred anthem
05. CONCLUSION: TIME TO RISE AND SHINE
Dearest colleagues, our fathers here present – the university authorities, union leaders, past and present ( I always believe there are no past leaders anyway. Once a leader, always a leader. Once a comrade, always a comrade). I need you to know that:
“The dawn of a new era has broken forth, casting away the shadows of complacency and ushering in an epoch of redefined pursuits. Pursuits for excellent greatness. Today, we pass the torch of leadership as if it were the Olympics’. A new chapter in the annals of Great Ife is being scripted, and we are, but dancing, unerasable pencils, in the passing slate of history. The task ahead is monumental, but with unwavering determination, strategic planning, and the collective will of the student community, we shall surmount every hurdle.”
“Let us embark on this journey together, with a spirit of unity, innovation, and service. The time for rhetoric is over; the time for action is now. Let us rise, shine, and redefine the essence of Great Ife.”
Are you ready? Let’s Go! 3. 2. 1! Great Ife…
Thank you, Great Ife. It’s been my greatest honor and esteem pleasure.
OMOBORIOWO DAMILOLA ISAAC
PRESIDENT, GREAT IFE STUDENTS’ UNION