“All work and no play”, one would assert, “makes Jack a dull boy” however not take cognizance of the adverse effect that too much play, and little or no work can have on one. Across departments, faculties, and the university at large, the primacy of entertainment over enlightenment and empowerment is an indisputable fact when it comes to the operations of most student leaders. As such, one wonders what has happened to the supposed commitment of the student union to “harnessing the enthusiasm of students for dynamic, purposeful, political, socio-economic and technological development” as stipulated in the preliminary remarks of the unions’ constitution.

As against the union’s aim “to promote the social, cultural, intellectual and recreational interests of its members” —all and not part— it has been observed that premium attention has been paid to promoting social interest via too many social activities. Perhaps the possibility of promoting social interest via more profiting, educational and enlightening programmes has never crossed student union leaders’ minds.

Social life, it must be understood, captures an individual’s connection and bond with other people around them, and may be measured through the quality of communication and interaction that exist between individuals in terms of duration among other variables. With this in mind, promoting the social interest of students need not take a static mode of incessant partying, and gyration. More can be done in terms of harnessing resources to set up more promising programmes without downplaying students’ social interests “Partying” may be vital to cooling off workload, its excess is however questionable.

Taking the operations of NASELS leaders (National Association of Students of English and Literary Studies, University of Ibadan, as a case in point, the imminent “Hue Haven” would keep the frequency of “social” engagements at three within a session, a three-to-nil count between partying and scholarship. With this proliferation, party cultures would become the new normal with each emerging leader trying to do better than their predecessors, in which case trying to do better would imply more partying or elaboration of existing ones.

As earlier asserted, this issue is not just a grassroots problem but one that cuts across the different tiers of leadership on our campus, that is, departments, faculties, and the school at large. Within this session, two events namely “Finem Anni party” (an end-of-the-year party) and “Vita Nova” (Freshers week) amidst other partnership engagements like the “Marvin’s Record Campus Tour”, “MTN campus tour“, “FANICE campus tour” and “Trace in the city” held by the Student Union of the university have centred on merriment. The same is what obtains in the Faculty of Arts where “ARTLAS” and “ARTMOSTFAIR” have also been held within a session.

Maintaining that these activities are not intrinsically bad, the immodesty that most students engage in during these events raises the question: what are the contributions of these events to the decadence —in terms of fashion and actions— on our prestigious campus? Have these events truly helped in maintaining the social interest of students in line to set them up? Are there no other alternatives to maintaining social interests other than partying?

Considering the high rate of unemployment ravaging our beloved country much needs to be done by student union leaders to equip students with skills relevant to the present day’s innovative drive. This would augment the curriculum with which the school operates, and foster the production of graduates who are up-to-date in terms of skill acquisition. Since the recently concluded “3-day boot camp” by the student union to empower the student with relevant graphic design, photography, videography, and social media influencing skills is a laudable one, efforts need to be put into making such programmes as frequent as other social events held on our campus. That way, the goal of “harnessing the enthusiasm of students for dynamic, purposeful…and technological development” which the union aims to achieve would be attainable.

Also, more synergy needs to be instituted by the student union between itself and the other strata of leadership namely faculties and departments in programme planning to cut down on the redundancy of entertainment on our campus. Collaboration could also be made between departments and faculties in seeing to students empowerment. In this manner, while students are empowered, they would also benefit from profiting from social engagement with like-minded individuals.