As at yesterday being 30th of October, 2019, the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FACULTY OF ARTS STUDENTS (NAFAS) election was brought to a halt and indefinitely suspended due to an outbreak of violence at the polling centre. The election which was scheduled to hold by 10am was delayed until after 12:00pm. Although there was a low turn out of voters when the voting process commenced, the centre soon witnessed an increased number of student voters. The exercise went well until the people ran out of voting papers. As gathered, the people waited patiently for more voting papers to arrive for a continuation.
From what was gathered from the inside source, one of the reasons for the violence which was later witnessed at the poll was the denial of the Theatre Art students, the right to cast their votes. Not only that, one of the aspirants for the position of Vice President from the department was also disqualified. Thus the post of VP was left unopposed and voting papers was not provided for it.
As the electioneering process continued, Theater Arts Students raised a serious protest which threatened the peace and order of voters as well as the officials.. According to the inside source, the protest which was led by Mr. Vince the Theater Art president and it was so severe that the Dean of the Faculty was also threatened . This lead to the disruption of the exercise and eventually the election was canceled and postponed by the Faculty Authorities.
Enquiring further, it was gathered that the department of Theatre Art had pending issues with the NAFAS, the body which governs the entire affairs of the respective departments in the Faculty of Arts. It was on record that the department of Theatre Art had refused to pay their share of Faculty dues as was paid by other department and had further withdrawn its membership from NAFAS. This automatically cut them off from enjoying every packaged under the umbrella of NAFAS including the right to vote and be voted for, thus their denial of participation during the 30th, October, 2019 NAFAS election.
Research and compiled by : Enoima Okon Edem ( Vice President. Main Campus)
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