By Ekemini Raymond,

CALABAR- The Student Union Government President of the University of Calabar, Comr. Ajang, Emmanuel Oko, has finally won the heart of the university management with regards to the decreased in the school charges of the university students for current academic session.

He disclosed this to the press, among other contending issues in the institution during a media chat with him in his office.

Speaking, on what he described as ‘The journey so far’, he outlined the achievements recorded within the short while of his tenure as the SUG president of the institution.
On the increased school charges, he said ‘ Just before the resumption, I had an information that the school management had plans to effect an increments in the school charges, immediately I proceeded to meet with the principal officers of the institution to seek for clarification and the bases for the increments.

They were all of the opinion that the only increment in the charges is the two thousand naira,(N2,000) National Health Insurance Scheme, (NHIS), introduce by the NUC to all federal institution.

The position of the union was that, if the NHIS fee will be introduced, the already existing medical fee should be extracted from the list of charges to be paid, and after much deliberations, the position of the union was accepted by the management and the breakdown of the charges was presented to the union for deliberations, and as we speaks, the only increment in the school charges is N900 for the NUC students, occasioned by the NHIS fee.

The CES students would have been the major victim, because their fee was to be increased by N5000, but the union rejected the idea, knowing very well the hard times faced by the students, and the consequences the increased may have caused, tracing back to the historic August 2011 incidence in the university, which was triggered by a similar action.

As I speak with you now, after the final meeting we had with the management of the university on Tuesday, 7th April 2015,we agreed that they should be no increments in school charges for both NUC and CES students, meanwhile, additional N2500 reflecting in the charges is not part of the school charges, you must know this, but a portal charge since the university is opening a new portal, and that will only be included for one session, he concluded.
Another contending issue that he also addressed was the eviction of campus fellowships from their respective secretariat, which has been described by many as Anti-Christian activity on campus, which may bring about Cultism activity on campus.

Ajang said, the action by the school management to eject fellowships from their respective secretariat came as a result of the need to renovate the union’s secretariat which different fellowships have been using as their respective centres for worship for the past years now.

He said that, for the renovation work to continue effectively, thus the need for the ejection, and as soon as the work is completed, they may be re-allocation of the venue to them back.

Meanwhile according to him, a temporal secretariat will be provided to all the ejected campus fellowships by the school management as soon as possible, so that the Christian activity on campus can continue.
Speaking further, he outlined the reasons for his administration to be seemingly slow in project execution to the delay caused by the management in approving the budget for the SUG.

According to him,’ I want to make something clear, most persons who expect the SUG president to starts execution of projects immediately he assumes powers are ignorant of the fact that the system in place makes that impossible’
Student’s union Government administration is a bureaucratic system, that follows a regular pattern year in year out, and most times it is difficult to work in such situation, he concluded.

Explaining further he said, on assumption of office, the legislative arm of the union has to be constituted and inaugurated, the budget needs to be prepared and presented to the senate for ratification, the ratified budget will now be presented to the Dean of students affairs, who will now convene a welfare board meeting who will now re-scrutinized every item on the budget, and in turn produced a streamlined budget that will be presented to the vice chancellor for the final approval, and you can bear with me all these takes processes and time, he added.

He continued, ‘it might interest you to know that the budget of my administration, which was presented on assumption of office by October 2014, was finally gotten approval by the vice chancellor on the 20th day of February 2015, exactly 4months into the administration, that means we had to wait for about four months before we started executing any project, he concluded.

Despite the various setbacks, the administration according to him has been able to achieve the following, through the various offices in the union:

Renovation of the malabor walk way in both male and female hostel, Purchase of new DSTV decoders and flat screen television to hostels, construction of about 15 SUG information board, the inclusion of the NHIS scheme into the students welfare, which the benefit is too enormous, organisation of the malabor world cup, and interfaculty sport festivals, the students week festival and excursion to obudu cattle ranch, the famous Mr/Miss UNICAL pageantry, Free HIV/AIDS counselling and testing to students among others.

So, my brothers you can see with me that this government has done a lot, even within the short while in office, and we are still going to do more for Nigerian Students, he concluded.

When asked about the position of the union on the recent list of suspended and expelled students from the University for Various Examination Malpractices, He said that the university has a rule and regulation, which every student know, and should try to observe them.

Examination malpractices, is a serious offence and has its sanction, therefore anybody found guilty has his or herself to blame.

The union has little or nothing to do in regards to that, but I only sympathize with the victims as fellow comrade in the struggle.

Finally, I wish to use this medium also to medium to call on all the students and relevant stakeholders not to only sit back and criticized the administration, but to contribute his or her quota toward building a better unionism on campus and a better Cross River at large, he ended.