The Speaker of the FUOYESU Student Representative Council, Rt. Honourable Balogun Oladimeji has been suspended for two academic calendar months in an emergency meeting held today 24th October, 2018 at Faculty of Arts, Lecture theatre 4.
Honourable Awe Adedapo representative of Demography and Social statistics constituency was the first to raise the motion that ” a vote of no confidence” be passed on the Speaker. According to him, he ‘raised this motion due to the speaker’s disrespect to the house members and the disrespect to the house’s symbol of authority’.
According to Acting Chairman of Disciplinary committee, Honourable Adebayo Abdulateef, representative of Economics and Development studies, the Speaker was suspended for two months for abusing the symbol of authority. ‘The house gave the disciplinary committee the power to conclude’ and the verdict was two months suspension. According to him the house voted through the use of simple majority.
Speaking to Campus Reporter, the Speaker, Rt. Honourable Balogun Dimeji from Geology constituency, said justice has failed because he wasn’t given a chance to prove himself innocent.
He said that there was first an allegation that he embezzled funds. He explained that from July, 25th that he came to office till now, he has only recieved 27,000 from the 700,000 given to the house so far. The 27,000 were for his in-pocket expenses, allowance and other duties for the house. The remaining has been for the running of the activities of the house, payment of sitting allowance of members etc. and that the funds of the house have always been in custody of the clerk.
He also spoke on the allegation that he said “fucking mace”. ‘I see the verdict of me being suspended as being biased’ and injustice was played, he said.
He explained that he went inside to meet the deputy speaker. ‘The acting chief whip told me to go out and I told him I am not going any fu…I didn’t actually complete the fucking not to talk of mace’, he said.
He said he doesn’t know if the honourables have any thing against him by insisting that he said the “fucking mace” and it went around in the house. The house took it up and passed a ruling on it while he wasn’t given the chance to defend himself.
‘I don’t think I am suspended’, he said. ‘I am still going to write a petition and an apology to the honourables’. ‘The records show that I am a just person’. If there are bad records ‘I will definitely resign but I know I have done nothing wrong and I still stand on my ground’. He emphasised that there was no agreement by 2/3 members, no trial and he wasn’t proven guilty before the verdict was passed. He said this was ‘more of a conspiracy…to remove the leader may be because of personal reasons’.
Speaking to Campus Reporter, the Deputy Speaker of FUOYESU SRC and currently the Acting Speaker, identified as Ahmed Usman, affirmed the Speaker’s suspension. According to him, the Speaker sent a notice of absence to him and asked him to preside over the sitting in his absence.
However, after that he walked into the hall where the sitting was being held. ‘We asked him to leave, he did leave but he was still hanging around the window but he now came back in and though I wasn’t close to him so I didn’t really get what he was doing but he mentioned “fucking mace” and that statement “fucking mace” is the reason for his suspension’, he said.
The Deputy Speaker also disclaimed the fact that the Speaker was suspended for alleged embezzlement of funds. He said the speaker wasn’t suspended for such but for misconduct.
He also countered the Speaker’s claim that the suspension was invalid because 2/3 of members of the house didn’t agree to the motion. According to him, ‘he was sent to the disciplinary committee, the disciplinary committee carried out their investigation and came out with a verdict and the house adopted it.
Source: UCJ FUOYE OFFICIAL WEBSITE
