Where Is Joy?

Every once in a while, we receive humbling, shocking reminders that for all the pomp and pageantry and bluster and bravado, student leaders are still just that, student representatives. As mere representatives of the students, it is painfully true that as grand as they are, they still report to the authorities. The best they can do; the reason we choose them to do the job, is the delicate dance of an origami backbone. A dance of pretending to have some resistance just to eke out a slightly more favorable result for the students whom these honorable representatives have chosen to shield. This is why, despite their almost insignificant significance in the almighty authorities’ grand scheme of things, they appear to us students, like the Justice League of Superheroes.

The Dentatics Press reported last year, a press conference with the Student Union Executives of the Samuel Oluwatobiloba Samson administration. A cogent issue raised during this meeting was the fact that we had not stopped paying Technology Fee, yet we were not getting data for online classes anymore. This concern was especially significant at a time when recently raised school fees were heating heads and raising hackles. The answer the press members at the meeting received was that there were plans already in the works for Wi-Fi for students. This was Wi-Fi that would be free since it had been paid for with the Technology Fee. That being said, we were pacified that routers were still being purchased, and hence, we would have to wait for a little longer. The first sign of any light at the end of the tunnel appeared early this year when some people reported seeing e-mails in their student mails about Wi-Fi account names and passwords.

Skip nine to ten months after, particular locations in the University of Ibadan, like the Faculty of Technology and Faculty of Arts, among others, are hot spots for the enjoyment of this… Well, free hotspot. The story has changed significantly. On the other hand, if we pan the cameras a few feet away to the University College Hospital and its student population, the story has also changed. The hall exists in a balanced and accepted new fashion of electrical wires on a long leave. Most of the electronics in the hospital are put to work for a few hours every day in the best-case scenarios. In the worst cases, quite a few wires have not felt the touch of moving electrons in way too long. Still, the student population is pushing, some populations in worse states electrically than others.

At this point, I must come to the end of my long-winded piece. It is lovely that so much is being done for the students. Yet, Brownites are enjoying isolation from the larger social body of the University of Ibadan, from a lot that goes on outside the hospital gates, and, very recently, from electricity and water. These circumstances are understandable. Now, we were promised our own Wi-Fi access soon, this just a few months ago. The sincere question is “How much longer might we be waiting, please?”. Also, “Is the delay by any chance due to our lightless, joyless, helplessly imposed and hopelessly indefinite new dark mode?”. Considering that we pay the same Technology Fees as the students who already have access, shall we boast of being in the same status yet having nothing that they have? No electricity, no social life outside of course mates, no time to just not be busy, no water, and now no Wi-Fi? We appeal to our dear superheroes, if it is possible, let us at least take money for data subscription off the minds currently plagued by bodies stressed from lifting buckets. Let us take it off ears and minds stressed from the inability to provoke good enough responses on percussion at ward rounds and clinic. This is just a reminder that ABH students are still under the Student Union. 

Thank you.