lasuconscience
After taking you on an interesting ride of some offices in the 35th LASUSU Administration, it goes without doubt that there are other offices that have not been addressed, and this we will do in the second part of this Editorial.
Interestingly, we are moving on to some offices that would not just interest you, but make you curious about what further goes on in LASUSU.
Let’s take it from here:
Asikoto Olamide Mauyon
The 35th LASUSU Public Relations Officer, assumed office in the same line as the great records set by his predecessor and the 34th LASUSU Public Relations Officer, Ibiade Benjamin.
As the mouthpiece of the Joldie-led administration, the public relations officer ensured that he worked according to his name “Asikoto” by providing timely updates and press releases that always showed the union’s stance on any matter, and most especially addressed key issues affecting the students populace. In line with his duty, he was also in charge of the press release which commemorated the 35th year anniversary of the Lagos State University Students’ Union.
Following in the style of his predecessor, Comrade Asikoto ensured to disseminate information on time to thwart rumours, and at the same time save the union’s face in any trivial matter.
However, the PRO wasn’t perfect, and had some flaws which were evident to the students populace. One of such flaws was his frequent use of big words in his press releases. This caused a huge complaint from students who assumed that the PRO was preparing press releases with the use of Artificial Intelligence e.g CHAT GPT. As much as many might in his defense argue that the PRO might just be used to using such words, it is important to remember that he is passing information to the general public, and if so many people are complaining about the same issue every time, that waters down the purpose of communication.
Another flaw of the PRO was his swiftness to debunk the news that the University was on strike in the first semester, despite clearly seeing the memo from the Joint action committee (Read here) . Recall that LASU Conscience in the first semester reported according to a memo issued by the Joint action committee that all members of the academic staff and non-academic staff should stop working and incase you’ve forgotten, it was the same issue that led to the unusual Christmas break we had last year’s December.
In the midst of this back and forth between the members of staff and the University management, our very own students’ representative rushed to debunk the news, and stated that normal activities would resume. What was he thinking? We understand that he was trying to cover up for the school, but, directly debunking a memo that has been seen by almost every student was a laughable act, which can be forgiven considering the fact that he is not a student of Communication.
As the PRO has served in a good capacity, although with little errors, it is left for the 36th LASUSU PRO, 5STAR, to learn from the mistakes, and see how to build loyalty just has his predecessors have done, and in fact, create his own mark that wouldn’t be forgotten easily.
Comrade Adegoke Olamilekan AKA Leon
The 35th LASUSU Social Director assumed office with a lot of promises and drama involved in his election into office.
As it is stated boldly in the LASUSU constitution that the social director shall:
“organize and coordinate all social and cultural activities of the Union.”
It was evident that Leon didn’t forget this, as he sprung into action upon his inauguration and gave LASUites a strong social life including adding cultural activities to spice things up.
As it is the norm, he organized the Mr&Miss Lasu Freshers, a well-attended pageantry competition that showcased beauty and elegance among numerous students from various faculties and departments in the Lagos State University. Adding to this was his initiative to host the LASU costume day, where many students were clad in several costumes as they wished, while having fun at the students arcade.
Whilst performing his duties diligently as the social director, Leon never deviated from his campaign plan of hosting the first ever Ojude LASU, and although, it took a lot of planning and stress, he eventually pulled it off as many LASUites took to the sports centre to adorn themselves in traditional attires that displayed the rich traditional culture, and this goes to say that we had a working social director who knew what he wanted, and worked immensely to achieve it.
While we mention this, we can’t also forget the LASU Gala night which saw many students with attendance with several awards being given to celebrate greatness.
As much as everyone is singing the praises of the social director with the inclusion of the press, we can also not be quick to forget the lackadaisical attitude that has been a pattern that has been shown to the press. In all of the social director’s initiative, particularly the LASU costume day, where LASU Conscience noted that the inclusivity wasn’t so strong, and tried to interview him both physically and online on his plans on how he could improve it ahead of the iconic edition of the Ojude LASU. Surprisingly, our good gesture was met with silence, despite viewing the messages, and every attempt to keep reaching him was met with the same reaction.
What is more? After waiting for almost a week for the social director’s response, we had to go on to publish our stance on the topic: “Is Ojude LASU Possible?” And to our bemusement, not so long after we pushed out our Editorial, the silent social director became active and began to throw threats and tantrums in the DM of the then Editor-in-chief, and even resorted to online gimmicks, Laughable!
Is that all? Upon the success of the Ojude LASU, as a press body, we still had to publish what we noticed about the event, with the topic: Ojude LASU: Did it meet the standard?”
Upon publishing this, we received a lot of comments from not just the social director, but his minions.
Were we shocked? Well, standing for the truth at times puts you in the bad books of others, however, we were surprised that a so-called student of communication and a politician could not handle little criticism which was not focused on tarnishing his image or watering down his efforts, but praising and pointing out what he should have done better, but instead, acted like a baby and began making derogatory remarks about a media outlet, and even going as far as describing LASU Conscience as a Blog.
Our advice to the 36th LASUSU Social Director is to prioritize the act of giving the media audience whenever he’s being approached in order to avoid resorting to cheap social media tantrums.
Comrade Idowu Akintoye
The 35th LASUSU Sports director did his duties to some extent and worked with those who were enthusiastic about sport on campus, as he begun organizing competitions that satisfied the needs of many students sport lovers.
In line with his duty, he organized the 2025 LASUSU games, which featured several sporting activities from football, basketball, volleyball, track events, and many others.
However, this isn’t just the essence of having a sports director. If sport is just to those who are already in it, why need a director? The very reason for this is to work with those already there and build an atmosphere for those who are still yet to see the value of sport.
In case the sports director has forgotten, sport is international and the things we do from the foundation are the things that become international.
We urge the next sport director to not just see sport as something that already exists but as a seed that needs to be sown in a fertile soil. Work on publicity, inclusivity, training and development. Sport isn’t just an exercise but a vision.
Comrade Adeniyi Musa
The 35th LASUSU Financial Secretary assumed office as the “Financial officer of the Union,” and began carrying out his duties as stipulated in the constitution, albeit just to the eyes of the union alone.
Just like one of the major problems in politics is accountability, we saw a bigger one in the Financial Secretary, who according to the Constitution shall:
“publish the union’s statement of account every month,”
however, this part never seemed to matter to the Financial Secretary, as at no point in time was the financial statement of account of the 35th Lagos State University Students’ Union, made available to the students populace.
We were in a total state of blindness to the Union’s financial capacity and capability, hence, no one could tackle their excesses, and this showed gross misconduct on the 35th LASUSU Students Executive Council.
As a press body saddled with the responsibility of checkmating the leaders, we did send a letter through the General Secretary to the Financial Secretary, requesting for the statement of account to be made public, and surprisingly, we were met with silence.
This silence on the part of elected leaders who are supposed to serve the students populace is quite alarming, in the sense that if one of the custodian of the financial capacity of the Students Union can remain silent, ignore and refuse to respond to the requests for transparency, it goes to say that Nigeria is not ready for a change.
Change begins with us, but in the case of our financial secretary, transparency and accountability was never part of his plans. Although, we can label this as a joint err on the 35th LASUSU administration, the fact still remains that it is the duty of the financial secretary.
Although this is just us stating the issue of financial unaccountability, we won’t keep to just this as this problem is what we all need to know and address.
We are also using this medium to admonish the 36th LASUSU Financial Secretary to not just learn from the mistakes of his predecessor, but be ready to inculcate good values in order to leave an indelible mark on the students populace even after leaving LASU.
Comrade Alimi Toheeb
The 35th LASUSU Legal Director, popularly known as Alimson, rightly assumed office, and began discharging his duties as the “Chief Law Officer of the Union,” as stated in the LASUSU constitution.
In an interview with the Legal Director, he mentioned some of his achievements during his tenure, including: “creation of the first LASUSU Ministry of Justice, in line with his constitutional duty which is to register counsel for and on behalf of the union-the Ministry comprised 3 Senior Advocates of LASU (SAL) including myself; appointment of the Director of Public Prosecution and Solicitor General, in persons of David Akinwunmi and Ghazal Awwal respectively; created the legal team, and through the team released two different forms of periodic nuggets on Human rights and Law facts generally; organized the students’ advocates competition; served as the Chairman of the LASUSU Anniversary Week; in conjunction with the President, resolved a nearly decade old case of student suspension at the Students Disciplinary Committee; wrote series of letters on legal clarifications, notably among them-the clarifications on the legal position with Lasulife;in conjunction with the Welfare director, resolved several Tenancy issues, and successfully organized two webinars on Legal Awareness and education.
However, in spite of the Legal Director’s commendable efforts, his suspension by the SPC almost seemed like a dent on his image. Recall that LASU Conscience reported that the Legal Director, Comrade Toheeb Alimi, was suspended indefinitely from office by the Speaker of the Students’ Parliamentary Council (SPC) during an emergency meeting on Friday, 14th February 2025, at the Hallowed Chambers, Students’ Arcade.
The 35th LASUSU Legal Director was suspended indefinitely due to dishonesty, misrepresentation, and misuse of office. Read Here.
How did we get here? We’ve been hearing of many members of the Students’ Executive Council getting suspended, however, we never imagined that the custodian of the law himself could be suspended on the very law which he preaches.
Interestingly, while seeking the Legal Director’s view on the matter, he said, “The incidents that led to my suspension were clearly out of spite and definitely a product of political shenanigans.
It was very evident when the SPC couldn’t even appear or defend their position during the court trial.
What I did was merely my duty. They anchored their invalid suspension on a letter I wrote to the house informing the house of a court judgement and the implications of the same; which is well within the confines of my authority and duty as the Attorney General.”
Although, the LASUSU High Court ruled in favour of the Legal Director, read here, we are left to wonder on who was right between the Legal Director and the SPC.
We have taken you through the feats and errs of the 35th LASUSU administration (SEC), and this goes beyond saying that despite the negligence of the media in the 35th administration, we carefully watched and ensured to assess their tenure.
This is an important note to the incoming 36th LASUSU administration to ensure to learn from the errors of their predecessors, check through the Constitution properly, and make their administration better.
