9th Ordinary Sitting of UNILORIN Senate Council: A Report.

Upon  confirmation from the clerk of the house that they are no incoming mails. The business of the day was announced to grace the floor of the House.

ISEC Budget
The committee members were invited to present the ISEC budget to the House. 

The presence of the chairman of the committee, the General Secratary, Mr. Adeyemi Ibrahim, and the PRO, graced the floor to address senators and congressmen alike.

Their presentation to the house goes thus:

Press Night Budget @PS and COHS:
Security
Sound system, amplifier speaker
Microphones
Electricity
Stationery
Typing & Printing
Transportation
Flash drive
Publicity
ICT unit(OTP)
Manifesto day (both at PS & COHS)
Screening day (refreshment for ISEC members, and delegates of 
Student Affairs)

Security 

Election day 

Salaries.

After hours of deliberation and scrutiny, some parts of the budget were approved as proposed, some scrapped, while others were slashed.

The new ratification that sets in upon the decision of the senators include:

Press Night
#500 was ratified to be used as the sum to provide refreshment for pressmen.

Security for the press night was pegged at #2,000.

Items such as sound system, microphone, speakers, Generator, amplifier speaker were all scrapped on the basis that the office of the Welfare Secretary can make provision for it, being part of the items the Union have in store. That they won't be need to search too far to fetch it except for little touches of repair that it will need.

It was on this basis that the fund meant to finance the equipment was scrapped.

Next of the agenda is the stationery and it was approved to be 30 units as proposed.

Sale of Form
300 units of form was proposed by the electoral committee as they made it clear on the floor of the House that the money for all forms sold goes directly to the SU account. Thus, the proposed budget was slashed to 250 copies at the rate of #30,000.

Posters were said to be needed to be used in creating awareness  to both aspirants and electorates for the election time-table.

50 copies @the rate of #250 with 2 rims was approved as proposed by the committee.

The use of marker for writing on card board to be pasted at various faculties was approved but ratified to 4 pieces (permanent marker) as against the one pack proposed by the committee.

Typing, printing was also scrapped, with the notification that it can be done at the Financial Secretary's office.

Budget allocated to the transportation in all of the electoral activities were also scrapped with compensation that they will be conveyed by the Student Union bus.

The idea to use flash drive for documentation was also approved.
Bulk SMS was approved for units to be purchased.
One time password (OTP) for  the electorate was also approved by the House.

Manifesto Day
Provision for four security men for the manifesto day both at the PS & the COHS, was also approved as proposed by the committee.

Screening Day
Refreshment for ISEC members was approved as proposed but ratified to #300.

#500 was ratified as refreshment for the two delegates from students Affairs as against #1000.

Security
Its budget was approved as proposed @the rate of #1,000.

Election Day
Papers to be laminated were approved at the rate of #750 in total.

ISEC Members Salaries
a. Chairman: ratified #10,000 as adopted in the last session as against the proposed #15,000

b. General Secretary: ratified to #8,000 as against the proposed #13,000

c. P. R. O: ratified to #7,000 as against the proposed #12,000.

d. Commissioners fee were ratified to #6,000 each for the 27 commissioners as against the proposed #10,000.

It took over 30 minutes of deliberation whether to allow the legal teams in place of Attorney General but the Constitution they say it supreme law as it allows the ISEC to make the decisions on what they want to adopt.
Legal team, legal practitioners, Attorney General? It remains the decision of the ISEC.

To wrap it up,  The House concluded that #5,000 should be allocated to them.

COMMITTEE REPORT
The report commenced at exactly 5:11pm with a report presented to the House by the Law Reform Committee on the correction of some sections of the SU Constitution. 

The following were some of the corrections made:
Eligibility, nomination and appointment instead of qualification (Part 2); correction of expenditure of the commission to function of the commission @section 43(4)(5).

Changing of the numbering of the Constitution such numbers as: 6-10, 20-30 etc.

Also, corrections were made in "Part 6(22).

STANDING ORDER
Corrections and changes were also made in this aspect. Senator Nucleus of Life Sciences Constituency, moved for the standing order of the House.

Corrections were made in the following: "All the Senate Council sittings  shall hold on Saturdays except the inaugural sitting"

"Standing out to Standing order"

Also, changing of the first letter of the Senate President from small letter to capital letter.

Other areas include: Rule 16A, Rule 19 etc.

AOB
A bill sponsored by Senator Oladejo Sherifudeen was read to the House by the clerk. The bill was for the establishment of the Student Union Bar Association. 

Thus,  the Senate President asked the sponsor to come and make the  aims and objectives of the bill known to House. 

According to the sponsor,  the bill was to guide students legal practitioners in the school and among others.

In reaction to this,  many senators asked questions concerning the foundation of the bill.  Senator Providence of Art constituency sought to know if the Student Union Bar Association would be part of the Judicial Council of the Student Union.  To this, the sponsor said, "No".

The bill which was debated exhaustively, scaled through the first reading. To this effect, the Senate President told the senators to consider the advantages of the bill to House and enjoined the sponsor to revisit the bill along with the Law Reform Committee for the subsequent stages.

In the same development, another bill was read to the House by the Clerk was on the alteration of the SU Constitution was deliberated upon by senators.

The bill scaled through the second stage and thus, Senator Musa of the International students constituency, moved for the bill to passed into law.

The Senate President asserted that the bill would be sent to the SU President for his assent.

In furtherance to this,  transition bill was also read to the House by the Clerk. According to him, the bill is aimed at proper transferring of documents, assets and other official materials by the SU officials.

To this end, the bill was tagged "Transition Act." It also scaled through the second reading and thus, the Senate whip moved that  the bill be passed into law.

Immediately after this, Senator D representing education constituency, moved for adjournment of the Sitting.

The sitting came to an end at exactly 9:52pm.

Ibrahim Rasheed
&
Rufai Monsurah
UCJ, UNILORIN.