Sodiq Oyeleke
The Vice President of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife Students' Union, Miss Jacob Tosin, has said that she resulted to the use of a bottle after feeling unsafe.
While insinuating that she was scared of being mobbed or gang-raped, Tosin alleged that she had earlier been sexually pressurised and threatened to be beaten.
Tosin, popularly known as Emerald on the university campus, explained that her initial attempt to escape from the meeting proved abortive with the exits being blocked and shut on her.
It would be recalled that Emerald and the Social Director of the OAU SU, Adedayo Emmanuel, had engaged in a bloody clash Tuesday evening.
The clash occurred during a meeting on the utilisation of N3.8m recently disbursed to the account of the Union by the school management.
While Emmanuel, popularly known as Lamba secured a minor injury, Emerald is currently admitted at the Seventh Day Adventist Hospital, Ile-Ife, after being headbutted by the Social Director.
Recanting her experience from the hospital bed on Friday, Emerald lamented that other executives connived against her over her tough stand against fund mismanagement.
Emerald, who complained that she was molested and assaulted in the meeting, noted that she might have suffered more injuries without self-defence.
She said, "There was a gang-up. I was detained against my will, taunted, over powered and severely beaten by Lamba in the presence of the president, Ibukun Oyekan, and other union executives.
"The meeting started a few minutes to 7pm. The major issue for discussion was how to spend the ₦3.8 million that was paid into the union account. There were all kinds of phantom projects being proposed and I was convinced that these projects were just white elephant projects for the diversion of funds.
"I disagreed with most of the deliberations on two grounds: the nature of such capital projects required budgetary allocation and parliamentary vetting. Talking about money in this manner simply projected a picture of another shady and dodgy attempt to pilfer funds for personal aggrandizement.
"The arguments got so intense and seeing that I was alone, I told other members of the Executive Council that I wasn't going be a part of such a meeting anymore and so I got up to take my leave. Enraged by my audacity and the implications it portended, Lamba made for the door and blocked me from leaving.
"The insinuation that his move was friendly is not only false but an unfortunate story for the image of the union. He had even threatened very recently to beat me up any day we meet off campus. His blockade was aggressive, provocative and very hostile. The president also instructed that all exits be locked and that I had to be a part of the meeting at all cost.
"I began to raise my voice that I was being held against my will. I insisted I was leaving, and at that point, feeling threatened and unsafe, I got into a struggle with the DOS at the door.
"In other to make me comply, he pushed be aggressively several times and at some point hit me severally and pulled me back. While I was being rough handled, I became conscious that I was the only female in the room. These other union officers were all males and had an agreeing point and I was the only one opposing their plans in that meeting. They taunted me as the DOS was hitting me.
"I began to scream in alarm, people around the students union building premises heard my voice and made attempts to force their way in, but they were prevented by the president who told them that everything was okay and that a meeting was in session. At this point I became desperate and no longer felt safe at all.
"I began to look for anything around me to defend myself with. Everyone in the room made jest of me and the president says, 'it is two fighting', which was not.
"They saw my effort to get a weapon to defend myself with and asked what I could do even with it. I eventually got hold of a bottle because that was the only thing I could lay hold on in self-defence. People were banging at the door outside so as to come to my aid until the speaker of the parliament found a way to force his way into the room to salvage the situation.
"In the meantime, I had been butted in the head, the bottle had been collected from me in a rowdy manner that gave the DOS the opportunity to keep hitting me. My left arm almost got fractured, my legs were hit severally. I was hit on the face, on the chest seriously and battered all over. My nose was bleeding when I was being carried out of the scene and I couldn't support myself anymore and was rushed to the Health Centre."
She alleged other executives of wanting to misuse the fund, saying that was how a vehicle was purchases for N2.5m in her absence.
Recall that the OAU SU executives have earlier been accused of misappropriation when it used a previous disbursement of N3million by in June to purchase a bus.
Though, the union executives said the bus was purchased for N2.5million, students of the institution insisted that the bus could be gotten with N900,000.
She said, "All the deliberations pointed in the manner and character of the bus scandal. I opposed the entire bus project and the approach adopted to the whole thing.
"Then followed the political manipulations to subdue me, psychological pressure, sexual pressure, veiled (and actual) threats, and lying propaganda in the bid to taint my image, discredit my person and politically subdue my voice for truth."
When contacted, the president asked our correspondent to call back in two hours.
Neither was subsequent calls put across to his telephone picked, nor message forwarded to him replied.
Lamba debunked the allegations, confirming that he was also injured.
Written by NEWSTRAWL ONLINE UPDATE
Sodiq Oyeleke is a Media, Human Resources, Project Management and Public Relations Practitioner
0 comments:
Post a Comment