ABH Town Hall meeting
On January 7, 2026, a message was sent to inform occupants of the Alexander Brown Hall that there would be a town hall meeting the next day. The meeting aimed to address the recent questions regarding the upcoming accommodation process. Of the students in ABH, the MBBS and BDS academic calendars are not concurrent with the UI academic calendar. As such, the issue was that there would be 4 sets of medical and dental students in ABH at the next accommodation process. 2k23, 2k24, 2k25, 2k26.
The meeting kicked off a little after 7 pm. The Deputy Hall Chair, Osaretin Vanessa, opened the meeting by apologizing for the Hall Chair's unavoidable absence. She then went on to state the reasons for calling the meeting. She spoke about the disparity between what the hall could accommodate and the number of students who needed accommodation. She mentioned that during a meeting with the hall warden some time before, a lot of suggestions had been made, but none had been decided on, hence the meeting. She introduced the other people present with her, including Okelue Patrick, President of UADS, Olu-Adegbola Folusho, President of UIMSA, and Alonge Razaq, Hall Secretary of the Alexander Brown Hall, among others.
Okelue Patrick spoke next, pointing out that the 2k23 class needed the accommodation for the upcoming MB exams later in the year and that the final year class usually had priority in choosing rooms, a statement that caused a lot of noise. Discussions went back and forth with people pointing out that the final year class had enjoyed those privileges of having and picking rooms in the last cycle despite knowing they would need them now. As such, the sentiment expressed was that the 2k23 class should forgo any thoughts of getting rooms in the hall. After all, their actions at the last cycle meant the freshers, the 2k25 class had none of the fresher's privileges they really should have enjoyed. For some background, the custom is that the finalists and the freshers are usually guaranteed accomodation, while the other class(es) would ballot for the rest of the rooms.
The President of UADS responded that the last accommodation cycle brought about an unprecedented case where the people actually writing their final mb, the graduating class of 2k21, and the finalists, according to the UI calendar, the 2k23 class, were two entirely different sets. The reason for this was that the four month MDCAN strike and the students strike during the blackouts did not register in the University of Ibadan. Hence, as at the time of the last accomodation cycle, the 2k21 class had graduated according to the UI calendar, while the 2k23 set were the finalists. In reality, the 2k23 set still had about two years to go when the strike was called off, and the 2k21 set were only approaching their final exams.
Another speaker also pointed out that it was unheard of for a final year class to have to write their exams from outside the hall, despite the fluidity of the MBBS and BDS calendars and their discrepancies from the UI calendar. The MDCAN strike early last year(link to article on MDCAN strike) was largely responsible for this. The back and forths went on. A suggestion to split the accommodation quota as "30 percent for 2k26, 30 percent for 2k25, 30 percent for 2k24, and 10 percent for 2k23" was brought up which was met with the loudly expressed displeasure of some classes and the loudly expressed approval of others. The meeting was increasingly noisy and rowdy as it dragged on. Tensions held tightly back almost ruptured for the first time after a speaker mentioned that "No f**king body" had any right to chase the 2k23 class out of the hall as they too had had to cope with the 2k18 set; four sets ahead of them, when they resumed as freshers.
The Vice Hall Chair spoke again to say that the meeting was not to become some kind of faction war. The Hall Secretary, Razaq Alonge, also enjoined everyone present that all the finger-pointing and blame-pushing was unnecessary. Rather, anyone speaking should leave rebuttals out and make it solution-based.
Unfortunately, the next speaker would open with the words "2k23 is a very wicked class". At this point, the location of said speaker gradually boiled over with people straining to beat up or scream at other people, and other people holding them back. The meeting devolved into a pandemonium that took a long time to quell.
The outgoing Student Union President, Odedele Covenant, spoke at this point. He pleaded with everyone to be polite and treat the right to speak as a privilege. In a moment of light-hearted humor, the Sports Secretary would ask the Student Union President to mention that people should stop stretching the volleyball net. The President finished speaking and the weather caused everyone to have to continue the meeting at the quadrangle. The former editor-in-chief of UIMSA Press, Eriomala John, and two other people also spoke at some point on potential solutions they had. Some of these solutions were iterations of the "30-30-30-10" split proposed earlier, while others were focused on opening the unoccupied student accomodation facilities such as the CARTA block, a 60-bed space building originally meant for exchange students and the Phillip Ozuah block, the first of some new blocks under construction. After this, another almost-fight broke out. The rumored reason was that the 2k23 class wanted their rep to speak, but the last speaker for the night had spoken, and so their rep would not be allowed to speak anymore. The actual reason remains unknown, but for some reason, the rowdy pushing and pulling that tugged on the edge of an all-out brawl only stretched longer and higher in tension and noise.
The Defense minister and his team stepped in but their efforts yielded very little. Eventually, the Defense minister, Oni Ajibola Solomon climbed a table and managed to slightly reduce the noise and force transfer by shouting that if anyone dared to get physical or take it too far, they would definitely pay the Student Disciplinary Committee a visit. The Student Union President spoke again and unfortunately, in a counterintuitive moment, managed to unintentionally rile up the barely calm crowd by opening with "First off, I would like to apologize on behalf of everyone who has been...." The rest of the president's words would be swallowed up in the din that ensued rapidly from that point on. Eventually, the Student Union President, while screaming at the top of his voice, managed to wrangle the first and only cohesive answer from the crowd gathered. He suggested that all anger and frustration should be directed through the right channels to those who were responsible for and able to truly deal with the issue. He pointed out that the Ozuah block, recently commissioned last year, was one of the options. The CARTA block for international students was another option for the accommodation of more students. The meeting ended on the note that all present should sign a document requesting that the school management make these facilities open to assuage the tide of students brought about by strike actions in the past year.
Papers were passed for signatures. At 9:02 pm, Friday, 9th January, the Information Minister of the hall, Adedokan Emmanuel, posted the conclusion of the meeting.
Salami Wisdom
Post a Comment