In the era of Covid-19 and the acute transformation of many activities to the virtual space, things obviously do not remain the same for the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and its affiliated students’ organizations. Apparently, one of the organizations severely hit by the Corona viral pandemic is the Independent Veterinary Medical Students’ Electoral Committee (IVMSEC), a standing committee of the University of Ibadan’s Association of Veterinary Medical Students (AVMS).
One would ask, are vet students not really tech savvy? Or the vet techies were simply not identified before IVSEC proceeded to make a Google form for collecting students’ votes for the just concluded by-election for the post of Health and Welfare Secretary of AVMS. If you voted or tried to vote on the 16th of April, 2021, you would realize that the e-voting provision of IVMSEC was a callous contrast to the normal physical voting previously organized by the electoral committee.
Normally for any voting activity, there are always three chances or options for the electorate as he proceeds to cast his vote. He is allowed to vote for the aspirant, not to vote for the aspirant, or to take an “undecided” stance. However, the April 16 e-voting innovation dosed by the IVMSEC to vet students only gave the chance of voting for the aspirant, completely overlooking the other crucial options: “Unvote” and “Undecide.”
But really, while it is easy to poke fingers at the IVMSEC, it is also important to analyze crucial circumstances that led to the substandard e-voting activity on April 16. Firstly, as expected, the turnout of the generally book-driven vet students was low and this might have discouraged the IVMSEC from going the extra mile to provide a better e-voting platform. Furthermore, that was the first time the IVMSEC will try out a virtual voting and we should not expect their maiden trial to be very perfect. In addition, the by-election period was concomitant with the time the vet faculty is giving constant doses of virtual lecture materials to vet students and most of the students, including the organizers of the by-election, already had a whole lot to attend to.
As the IVMSEC compiled the election results and subsequently announced the un-rivaled Ayobamidele Oluwatomiwa as the Health and Welfare Secretary of the AVMS, it is the general hope of the faculty that the electoral committee does better anytime they need to leave their comfort zone. Veterinary medical students are not left out in this crucial admonition; they need to be more deliberate about cogent issues that would affect their stay on campus. These include elections, participation in congresses, faculty activities, the university’s political and volunteering activities, etc. It is really saddening to constantly hear that the vet medicos are lagging in these aspects. For IVSEC, the expectations are now high and telescopes are directed to them as they undergo more of their constitutional activities going forward. Indeed, the hopes are high as the Acting Chairman of IVSEC, Mr. Abiodun Samuel, remarked “there is room for improvements.”
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