Unizik Students Decides Union Leaders, Winners Emerge
By Amarachukwu Callistus
The Nnamdi Azikiwe University carried out an election to elect new students leaders for its Students Union Government and other positions in department and faculties, the election lasted for 3 hours ranging from 9am till 12pm but was later extended to 2pm to ensure every Student participates, because there were some traffic around 10am which did not allow some students to register for hours, in the 10 position available in the SUG some candidates came out, 9 for President, 3 for Vice-President, 2 for Treasurer , 4 for Public Relations Officers, 2 for Director of Socials, 2 for Secretary General, 3 for Financial Secretary, 2 for Director of Sports, 1 for Assistant Secretary General, 3 for SUG Judge and other candidates for Judicial council from each Faculty and SRC from each Department, a total of 76 positions were available and 88 candidate applied.
Contradictory to previous years Student Union Government election involved a whole lot of violent process and rigging, in recent times the School management under the Bond Anaylae; Vice Chancellor of unizik introduced online voting through the school App which has had positive impact on students before the election day in Unizik, a circulating guide for the election educated students on how to cast their votes online so as to ensure peaceful and transparent election “Update your school app to the newer version, tap on the SUG Election Icon, the app will confirm whether you are eligible to vote or not, if you are eligible to vote, browse available positions, select your above preferred candidate and cast your vote” probability that 48,000 students will cast their votes which caused traffic around 9:45am till 10:45 am before some students were able to students were able to cast their votes
Esther Nomeh in an interview stated she had issues with her apps and urges the management to do better ” it was 10’0clock the app was having glitches and it could not open, if there is a way they can look for a better way to conduct election, i woke up around 8:30 to be able to vote since the school management insisted it was compulsory and also they should have set a stipulated time frame for the voting, they cannot mandate all Unizik Students in Awka to cast a vote at the same time in the space of three hours knowing fully well they are going to extend it”
Kinsley Ubaoji ; Dean of Students Affairs in a message to students stated the cause of the delay face by many students they should exercise patience as there would be extention of the time frame “Dear Students, these experiences are as a result of heavy traffic coming from over 48,000 students trying to log in at the same time. We will extend the time if at 12noon, if there are indications that students are still voting. The agents/observers are here seated and keenly monitoring the whole processes. This decision was a collective bargain of the agents and the electoral committee.”
After 2pm, Unizik Student of Awka Campus were advised to check their app, the winners came as, Winston Nnake for President with a total of 8,081 votes, Adaeze Obieze for Vice-president with a total of 7,247 votes, Umeh Nicholas for Secretary General with a total of 7,034 votes, Oliver Egbe for Assistant Secretary with a total of 7,034 votes, Charles Chukwuwekwe for Financial Secretary with a total of 4,618 votes, Esther Okolie for Treasurer with a total of 6,560, Mercy Ezeofor for Public Relations Officer with a total of 5,175 votes, Kamsi Emesi for Director of Socials with a total of 7,771 votes, Emmanuel Nwankwo for Director of Sports with a total of 8,495 votes, Ifeanyi Owoh for Director of welfare with a total of 2,907 votes , students were happy that the election was free and fair and commended the school authorities for Transparency
Benedicta Nwabufo a student in an interview expressed her mixed reaction towards the election results ” I was so happy and sad at the same time, not all the candidates i voted for actually won, and when i saw the votes of the other candidates i knew that to contest for positions is not an easy feat, in the end everybody is a winner, kudos to all who attempted “
