Comrade Muhydeen Olayinka
COVID-19 has impacted many aspects of our lives. To access the impact of COVID-19 on the administration of the Executive arm of the Faculty of Renewable Natural Resources, the faculty President, Mr. Muydeen Olayinka was interviewed by RENARSA Press.
RENARSA Press: Good morning, Mr. Olayinka. You’ve been president for a year now and you still have almost a whole academic session in front of you. How does it feel?
Mr. Olayinka: Good morning, the members of the press. It’s like you’re scaring me or let me say it’s like you scared me by saying I still have a whole year or let me say we still have a whole year because it is not just about me. Well, in the last one year, a lot has actually happened and I would say that majority of what we want to do, we are yet to do them. It was just like we had a break, actually, so we’re just starting now.
RENARSA PRESS: So, how exactly did COVID-19 impact your administration?
Mr. Olayinka: I would say it’s very obvious because COVID_19 has really affected majority of things globally now to the point at which the university had to opt for virtual lecture not to talk of Faculty of RNR not to talk of the students’ association. As intelligent minds that we are, you know there is always a challenge. Even if we had been going smoothly without COVID-19 and all, there would actually be challenges that we would have to face and overcome but now with the COVID-19, all of our plans were… or let me say we had to start changing because immediately after the pandemic, the executive we met and that was a physical meeting because we felt virtual, we might not make the best out of it. We had to meet to discuss the way forward because before the pandemic, our blueprint was already worked out because let me say we were able to meet certain persons and organizations depending on the work we really want to do with them because I remember I met the former Editor-in-chief, Miss. Mustapha Maryam, also the L and D chairman and some of our sponsors. Like I said, it’s not that these things are going to change. They’re not going to change but all we just have to do is re-strategize so immediately after the pandemic, we met, we re-strategized, and as we can see, I would like to tell you that the Faculty of renewable Natural resources after the students’ union freshers’ orientation, we are the first faculty to have done that immediately after the students’ union so for you to know that we are really working towards getting all our plans done, so to wrap it up, I would say it actually affected it.
RENARSA PRESS: Thank you for that. Do you believe you can still fulfil all the promises you made during the campaign and the manifesto before you became the president? Do you still believe all those plans are achievable?
Mr. Olayinka: Well, let me say I don’t know what you mean by achievable but during the manifesto and campaign like you said, we didn’t come up with things that are not impossible, we didn’t come up with things that are not feasible. We actually came up with things that we’ve worked on, and we were sure, and we’re still sure that we’re still going to do. You know, we had just 3 points agenda to work on; Academics, Social inclusiveness and the welfare, and on the academics, we’ve been working effortlessly in achieving a lot of our promises because since the pandemic, or let me say after we resumed from the pandemic, we started tutorials for the lower levels: the 200level, 100level, even as at now, we have the online tutorials going on. I don’t know if I should say this officially because it is like against the school protocol but we currently are running the physical tutorials too for our freshmen and the 200 level students. This is just to help them because you know, it has not been very easy to do, but like you said, we promised that we are going to do it and while we were promising, we understood the weight that comes with promises because for whom much has been given to, much is definitely expected. So, all of our promises, some have been done, some are going on, and we are still going to work on some, so I can confidently say that all of our promises are achievable.
RENARSA PRESS: Sir, you mentioned a 3-point agenda. I believe that is from your own manifesto. How do you intend to synchronize those things you promised the electorates and those things the other members of the executive promised the electorate?
Mr. Olayinka: Thank you. The 3-point agenda I promised, if you look at it critically, everything all executive will be doing is basically together, embedded in this 3-point agenda. If you talk about academics, talk about welfarism, talk about social inclusiveness, talk about most of these things. If you look at it critically, every of these other executive promises is embedded in the 3-points.
RENARSA PRESS: Alright, sir. We all know that dues is what administration is solely dependent on to run their administration. How has it been collecting dues now that we know that everything is supposed to be virtual now? So, online payment, there are no physical receipts and all that. How are you holding it together?
Mr. Olayinka: On payment of dues, like you said, since it’s a virtual semester, although I believe the 2nd semester will be physical as the school as said, so we can only hope. Let’s hope but the payment of dues has been going on, students are beginning to turn up because at first, the turnout was kind of low, but in the last one week, students have been turning up and the issue of the receipt, it’s not e-receipt. It’s e-receipt per-se but they’re still going to get the normal hard copy of the receipt whenever we come back in 2nd semester but we will like to encourage students to start paying up because running of administration is… you know, we can’t do anything without dues and for a smoother running of the current academic session so we would like to encourage students too to try as much as possible to pay up.
RENARSA PRESS: Among the executives , do you think the drive to rule is still there?
Mr Olayinka: like I said, I mentioned that , immediately after the pandemic, the executives met and strategized, aside from the agenda of the team, each and every member have what they are supposed to do, or say they have their dreams too, if the drive isn’t there, we wouldn’t have met after the pandemic, so if the drive isn’t there we wouldn’t have met, and like I said the other time , we are the first faculty to have done fresher’s orientation, so if the drive isn’t there, that wouldn’t have happened, and the academic work has been ongoing, the health and welfare minister with the support of the committee has been giving us the health tips, and during and after the pandemic, has sent messages to a quite reasonable number of students, checking on there well being, for all of the team members,I can categorically say the drive is still there
RENARSA PRESS: what is the present relationship of the executive with the legislative arm of the faculty
Mr Olayinka: Thank you, we’ve been having a good relationship, the executive team, we are reasonable set of individuals, the only problem would come, if we’re trying to play smart, the problem is usually money and anything that has to do with money, there will always be one or two issues, but we as a team, its not as if we are coming with the mindset of coming to squander the money that is being paid or that will be paid by RENARSAITES, and so far so good we’ve not been playing smart and with that we will keep doing things the way it should be done, and if that should continue, we wouldn’t have any problem, so far so good we have a good relationship and no problem.
RENARSA PRESS: The previous administration, they failed to carry out any capital project, how’s your administration going to be?
Mr Olayinka: well, let me not dwell on the past,but I’ll take it as you’re asking me how this administration is going to do capital project, let me not delve on the past. I can’t say this is what we are going to do,it is still early but I can assure you and promise that we are going to do something. Let me not be too detailed about it, Thank you.
RENARSA PRESS: Currently, what is the financial state of the faculty when you got to the office?
Mr Olayinka:As much as we all know, this is the third administration, and when I say third administration,when coming in as a new faculty, there would be one or two things we will always have to do, so we don’t really have much. When we came in, at least we had an amount of money in our bank account,I wouldn’t want to say the figure now, currently we are not very bouyant. Like I said the two past administrations, there were a lot of things that has to be done. Students’ association is not being run with air, there are certain things that you need to do with money, and for every administration, there would be agenda, for instance if the first administration invested on health and welfare, and the next invests or maybe sports, then the next will invest in another thing, till everything is balanced. But at least there are a whole lots of things that we still have to do with money. Currently we don’t have much, but we have something.
RENARSA PRESS: If the second semester is still virtual, would we still have social activities lined up? And which ones would you hold on to?
Mr Olayinka: That’s a very strategic question, we can only hope, everything is based on hope right now, there are programs that could actually be done virtually, and we know that there are programs that the virtual version of those programs… Let’s imagine having a virtual week, week is a major program in the faculty. let’s assume we now have a virtual week. Nothing is impossible, it only depends on how well it is being planned, let’s just hope, really! That’s all I can say about it let’s just hope.
RENARSA PRESS: We would like you to give a word of advice to the members of the faculty association.
Mr Olayinka: First of all, I will like to appreciate students,for their cooperatives..because for every program the turn out has been good, last Saturday we had the bird watching activity, basically to learn about biodiversity, so far so good the students has been really cooperative, we can only ask for more. On academics, this semester is a challenging one and it’s not like what we used to have, even me I am yet to balance, I am not used to all of these,while having class, I might just loose focus and start doing some other things… WhatsApp messages might just come up and reply, I tend to loose concentration and I am sure lots of students will have the same challenge, but we should try and put more efforts , don’t be discouraged, study more make more of researches and ask questions, we believe with all these, everything will come out good. We can only ask for more cooperation from the students
RENARSA PRESS: Thank you for your time sir.
RENARSA PRESS UI 