Special: SU Social Committee Meets SPF to deliberate on UDUS cultural carnival

Sewedo Khadijat reports

The Social Committee, under the leadership of  Comr. Akande Fatai Ayomide, the Social Director, Students' Union Caretaker Committee (CTC), Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, held a meeting with members of the State President's Forum on 30th, September, 2023 at the SU Secretariat.

According to Comr. Akande, the meeting was held to discuss the upcoming cultural carnival.

In his opening statement, he mentioned that the carnival will be a competition among the  College of Education, Polytechnic, and Usmanu Danfodiyo University in Sokoto state.

"In order to have a glance of what it will be like, we have consulted some people from town, the Ministry of Art and  Culture, and they agreed to make the carnival a kind of competition, between the three major tertiary institutions in Sokoto State, the competition will be COE, Polytechnic, UDUS," he stated.

"What we are doing here will be done in the other tertiary institutions too," he emphasized.

Representatives Comment

Abdulwahab Nurudeen, the representative of Lagos State President, asked for clarification.

"What I want to ask is the clarification of merging the College of Education, Polytechnic, and University. What I don't understand is, is it Sokoto campus traditional festival we are doing or UDUS," he inquired.

Responding to Abdulwahab's question, Akande noted that the competition is for UDUS but will include other institutions.

"The competition is not Sokoto competition, rather this is UDUS cultural carnival. All things being equal, there's going to be a cultural competition, between three major tertiary institutions. After which the subsequent winners from this program, will represent our institution at the state level. All things being equal, the organizers will organize a general carnival between Danfodiyo, COE, and Polytechnic," Comr. Akande replied.

"This is our carnival now, then from there, we take it up to the state level, then to the National level," he added

Comr. Stanley, the Anambra State President asked if there will be Registration.

"We are still working on modalities to follow, surely we would have some of you as part of our committee," Comr. Akande replied.

Supporting the Social Director's response, Comr. Habeeb Orelope, a member of the Social Committee added "Since there is a price [for participants of the competition] there will be registration, and the committee will work hand in hand with the SPF, to come up with modalities".

Not yet satisfied with the information supplied by the committee, Comr. Stanley continued to ask the organizers about the inclusion or otherwise of students from the UDUTH campus. 

"Do you have plans involving those in UDUTH, most times when they [the school management] announce a lecture-free day, they carry it out here [main campus], and those in UDUTH will continue with their lectures. You should involve those in UDUTH because I feel sad at times when they are left out of social activities, especially one like this". 

Reacting to this, the Social Director promised to work on it.

There Should be A Lecture-Free Day

The Plateau State President, Comr. Idris suggested that there should be a lecture-free day, rehearsals before the event day, and the presence of good cameramen who will take pictures of the event.

"Surely the activity is going to be held on Saturday, which I'm sure the lecture hardly holds except for GST, even with that, we will work towards making it a lecture-free day," the Social Director assured.

Furthering, he said: That's part of our underground work. We are still working on it. Hopefully, I know we have a Dean of Student Affairs with a listening hear, he will surely listen to us on making it a lecture-free day".

"Yes we will work on rehearsals, surely we need to have rehearsals because if we leave everything for D-day, there will be flops which will surely tarnish everything."

Meanwhile, Comr. Habeeb added, "The rehearsals will not be at the SU level, we called you here so that you can support us, it will be from the individual state level".

A Good Needed Vintage for the Event 

Responding to Comr. Idris on the presence of good cameramen, the Social Director said: "Part of what we are working on is bringing NTA in so that they can televise our activities on that day".

After much deliberation on whether tribes or cultures should be represented, it was later agreed that tribes instead of cultures would be represented.

"I feel we should go ahead with the tribe and forget about the state," Comr. Stanley said. 

Comr. Ishaq Yazeed, the secretary of the Social Committee responded. "Anyway we choose to go, surely there must be issues and some people must feel that we are biased".

"Now these two words, culture and tribe, there are two different things, I think of going for tribe because we have limited tribes but if we go by culture, as some of you have been debating, there are tribes with different cultures, they are diverse," he emphasized.

"So in my opinion, you see, let's go by tribe if you leave it to us, let's just give a breakdown, a list of the tribes we want from A-Z," he concluded.

Towards the end of the meeting, Comr. Habeeb reminded the SPF to pass the necessary information to their members.

"The reason why we called this meeting is because the majority of leaders are in school already, but we want it to be from the grassroots, if you start informing your people now, those that have not resumed will start coming with their costumes and everything. Is not that when they get to school, that's when you start telling them," he raised the alarm.

The event is scheduled to last a day.