By Christiana Peter
The Faculty of Education’s elections held on Thursday, 22 of April, 2021 at the Education Lecture theatre (EDLT) has come under heavy criticism.
An eyewitness account revealed that the election which was slated to start by 8am and end by 2pm was delayed due to the inability to get the dummy list on time. In spite of this, reports have it that students were still present at the election venue until 1:45pm when the elections eventually started.
According to a source who craved anonymity, the election witnessed an ample misconducts including having people who were not eligible to serve in the electoral committee coming to assist them.
The Students’ Union President, Okoko Wisdom Oluwaseun (Passion), according to another source, was present at the election scene, and was seeing giving orders amidst the misconduct of the Electoral Committee.
The incumbent acting president of the faculty, Busirat Agbona, was also said to be seen going in and out of the election hall into the main building which is against the rule of conduct.
After about 3 hours into the election, some of the Electoral committee members, our source revealed, called the attention of a lecturer, Dr Ibrahim from Human Kinetics Education to come declare the election over while about 500 student-electorates had not been granted the right to vote.
This negligence of the Electoral Commission, according to our sources, led to the disenfranchisement of the students despite the time wasted.
According to other claims, some of the electoral officers connived with the ruling department to ensure that students from the opposition department did not get to vote. Although our findings show that this claims remain unsubstantiated, yet.
Other accounts at UCJ-UNILORIN disposal also have it that the election was later declared over at about 6:pm, thereby depriving students of their voting rights and leaving them frustrated after a long day.
Meanwhile, attempt to hear the side of the electoral commission was frustrated as message sent to the chairman of the commission was ignored. And when placed a telephone call through to him, he would rather say “in few minutes, I will attend to the chat.” However, nearly 24 hours after the call, the chairman is yet to respond to the chat neither returns our call as at the time this report is being published.
