EDITORIAL

IS IT TIME FOR US TO DANCE?

YES, IT’S TIME FOR EVERY VET STUDENT TO DANCE
Time has availed us the opportunity to witness different administration of Deans in this faculty, but without missing out words, this present administration has tried everything within her capacity to change the image of the faculty starting from the new large animal theatre that was commissioned last year, to the newly refurbished physiology laboratory which had been in a debilitating state, and the recently commissioned new faculty lecture theatre.

David Brinkley said "A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him". There is  no doubt that this present administration has been confronted with various challenges but with firm determination and good purpose of heart it has surmounted these challenges, such as procurement of cattle for the sole purpose of exposing the clinical year students to the practical aspect of this noble profession, free anti rabies vaccination for final year students, changing of the faculty curriculum  from  the subject system to the course system with the main purpose of bringing out the best from the students and improve the standard of the profession.

My advice to the Para-clinical students is to work hard for what they want, because it won't come to them without a fight, they have to be strong and courageous and know that they can do anything they put their mind on to achieve.

You will all agree with me that in life, there is always room for improvement, and change is the only constant thing. Without missing words, I will like to appreciate the effort of one of our lecturers who took it upon himself to renovate the small animal theatre which has made the facility conducive for learning and saving of lives of our patients. How sweet and pleasant would it be if others would follow his footsteps!

   The Eagle

DANCE? TO WHAT MUSIC?

Veterinary Medicine, University of Ibadan, can be likened to a man who woke up before everyone else, and on seeing that it was not yet dawn, went back to sleep, only to wake up at mid-day when everyone is almost done with the day’s work.

Like A.C. Milan, like Liverpool, we only live on our name. Add a few more crumbs, and that’s all, we are done.

I would be bias not to admit that many things now seem to be finding their proper place in the faculty, and they are indeed laudable. Among them is the faculty’s new auditorium, the standard CCPZ facility, the superb Student-Lecturer relationship and recently, the re-introduction of course system. However, as a Yoruba adage says “a little mess insults the whole buttocks”.

Where are our horses? Can we not manage a horse? Our horses died, yet equine specialists (or rightly said, equine post-mortem specialists) are said to be produced every year. We used to have Man U (now relegated) and Dean (now sacked), and the latter gave birth to a beautiful, tender-looking foal, Sub-dean, who died soon after birth. After, we had Surprise, and now, even disbelief, we don’t have.

What about our donkeys? One is dead and the second joined the vigilantes during our exam, roaming everywhere without restriction even at midnight! Those that read overnight will testify that this donkey stays in front of the medicine toilet almost every mid-night and you have to appease it if you really want to enter the loo.

The 300 level students ascend series of staircases, only to enter their class and sit on wooden stools! That very class would soon serve as laboratory few hours later. The thing is, you can munch a few snacks in the class, but you dare not taste anything in the lab. I always wonder, “Is the class not the lab, and is the lab not the class?”

Our Wi-Fi stopped abruptly many months ago. Its stopping is not the problem, but not fixing it since then definitely is. When something spoils, we don’t abandon it, we fix it!

And students, where is the inter-class chemistry, a necessary pre-requisite for the unity of our noble profession craves? All we express, all of us, is baseless pomposity wrapped in unfounded intellectual superiority.

The adage that states, “The average is the enemy of the best” couldn’t be more correct. Only a man satisfied with mediocrity will say we are improving. Well, perhaps, a moving Snail may be said to be progressing, but compared with its mate, the Hare, and you might run out of patience. But we are not snails, neither are we Hares or Cheetahs, or Lions, we are the first, we should be the best! We started this race before everyone else. Why have they overtaken us?

Life is like a handful of days, and our breath like flower, beautiful but soon to wither. What you acquire is irrelevant after your demise, but the good you do, that makes you immortal.

Help Veterinary Medicine, University of Ibadan, and your name, like Isaac Newton’s, will never be forgotten. Never!

Then we will dance, and oh! What magnificent dancers we are!

Weeping baby

Conclusion: This column is about you, it presents two sides of a case courtesy of two writers from different schools of thought. Make your decision is it time for us to dance