New Students Union President Unfolds Agenda

The newly elected President of the Students Union Government, University of Ilorin, Musa Surajudeen, has disclosed his plans to make a good impact in the history of student unionism and the institution as a whole.

Surajudeen outlined the policy thrust of the union under his leadership while delivering his inaugural address captioned The Way Forward, last week after he took his oath of office at the Geology Lecture Theatre of the institution.

The president said his agenda would consist of creating a class representatives forum, organising students’ union tutorial, building students’ union hostel and facilitating a student research ground.

He explained that his administration would also create a forum through which all class representatives across each level would hold regular meetings with him and share their views, identify their problems and collectively proffer solutions.

“This will assist in forming a common umbrella under which all students reside and give everyone a sense of participation” he stressed, adding, However, that the forum has nothing to do with the aims and objectives of the Student Representative Council.

On the Students Union Tutorial, the Engineering student said his administration would deploy all the university scholars as tutors of their counterparts, adding that through this arrangement, the difficulties that students face in some courses will be addressed.

The president also disclosed that his administration would rise to the task of addressing accommodation challenges faced by students by building hostels, which he noted, would be a continuous project.

“We the leaders in this administration will do everything within our capacity with the support of the Student Affairs Unit, to ensure that we design and construct a standard hostel of 1,000 bed spaces,” he stressed, while he would also like the institution to integrate students within its existing research policy through which students’ contributions to such endeavour will be streamlined.

He claimed that students of the Faculty of Engineering and Technology students pioneered the use of electronic voting system through a research conducted by some students of the Faculty of Communication and Information Science, adding that enough room should be given to the “excellent and talented students of this great institution to showcase their ingenuity in solving problems.”

Surajudden also said that as the university prepares to host the West African University Games (WAUG), he would make one of the student union buses available for branding to create additional publicity for the Games.

He also canvassed the tarring of the motor park on campus and provision of solar street lighting between the gate and the main campus.

While commenting on the president’s address, the Vice-Chancellor and chairman of the occasion, Prof. Is-haq O. Oloyede, noted that it took about N1.2 million to erect a single pole of solar street lighting system at the university gate and prioritisation would make the institution expend its scarce resources available now on laboratories, library and other key areas.

He pointed out that it is a welcome dream that may be a reality in a not too distant future, while he enjoined the leadership to give their colleagues orientation on the maintenance and good use of the facilities on ground in the university.