Inioluwa Joshua: “I Believe That the Protest Actually Had an Effect.”

In a fourth of August Interview, the University of Ibadan Medical Students’ Association Press sat down with the immediate past UIMSA President, and member of the graduating class of 2025, Mr Inioluwa Joshua in an attempt to shed light on the previous Executive Tenure. This is the first of a two-part exclusive interview with the former student leader.

Good evening, I’m Osakwe from UIMSA Press. I wanted to ask a few questions about the outgone UIMSA Tenure. First of all, how would you describe the past tenure in summary?

I mean, it’s hard to find the right word to describe the last tenure, but I think a roller coaster is what would define the tenure, right? A roller coaster because there were so many highs and lows, lows in the sense that we had a number of very notable challenges that we had to surmount last tenure, a number of peculiar difficulties that we had to deal with. And the highs also come from the fact that we’re able to surmount a number of those difficulties and also the way we’re also able to fulfil the majority of our promises to the UIMSAites. I think a roller coaster would be the best way to describe the last tenure.

So, you said it was a roller coaster. What would you say were the notable achievements of the administration?

My administration had a good number of notable achievements as individual executive council members and also as a collective. I remember when I was running, I divided my plans for UIMSA into five categories. We had academic excellence, we had welfare, 

 We had sports engagement, we had alumni engagement, and we also had fundraising. So in my own office, I was able to achieve a good amount of success in those different categories. I can give you specific examples. For instance, at the UIMSA book drive, we used to have 66 books, and when we left, we had 99 extra books, which is about a 50% increase in the number of books, because I took it upon myself to reach out to alumni to give us new books. We were able to pay over 1.5 million in scholarships for 11 Indigent students. Some of them we paid both school fees and HPTL, for others we paid just HPTL fees. So it was a very good thing for UIMSAites. We also have the Endowment Fund, which is currently taking shape. That is to provide a sustainable model for generations to come with regard to providing scholarships for Indigent students. So I could go on and on with regard to all the things we’ve done. We have a generator now for UIMSA for the first time in over five years. That was the last time we had one. The Primus List, too, sorry, the Medscion Magazine too, was also published this tenure with the efforts of the PRO, myself and the General Secretary. So yeah, it’s been quite an interesting one. 

And in addition to that, what would you say were the challenges faced?

A number of challenges. First of all, I would say internal and external. So when it comes to external challenges, we had the well-known increase in school fees by over 100% in just a very short deadline for people to pay. And so that was a very big problem for us, because a lot of UIMSAites had issues. And you know, eventually, there were a number of things that happened with some people losing sessions. But thankfully, due to the proactiveness of our Dean and also some peculiar circumstances, which I wouldn’t want to elaborate on because of the specifics. But yeah, we were able to at least prevent people from repeating fully in medical school here, at least most of those that were affected. Also, we also have the issue of the light, where we didn’t have light for months. And then the worst was even the MDCAN strike, where we were on strike for four months. It was a very, very significant problem for us because there was a lull in our activities, people lost so much time. So it’s so many challenges. Internally, well, I think fundraising was a very big issue because if you look back at the tenure, you realise that we did a number of heavy projects. We went to NiMSA Games, had a 60-plus contingent that went to NiMSA Games and paid a subsidised fee that wasn’t even able to pay for their registration fee. We had the generator that was purchased. We were able to liaise with IMSG to do the solar panel project in the Anatomy Reading Room. We also had the scholarships that were provided for students. Those things came from fundraising efforts, and also the Health Week too. So yeah, I think fundraising was a very, very big challenge. Well, this year we had better participation of committee members. At least it was fair compared to last year. There’s still always that challenge of committee members not showing up. But I think this year was better. And also, we tried to involve more pre-clinical students, making them head committees alongside clinical students. So I think, yeah, those are things that are the same challenges that we had. 

Regarding the students affected by the fees deadline, are you willing to go into a little bit more detail on that and what’s coming of them subsequently and what plans are in place to prevent such a thing from happening in the future? 

I think what happened is very unfortunate in the sense that most people… usually what UI did in the sense of mandating people to have paid and losing the session is frankly not good at all because it affected hundreds of students so it’s not only medical students and what happened was that people who did not pay before the deadline were locked out of their portal, and so because of that they could not pay the fees for last session, and the remedy that was provided by the school is that they have to repeat that session which is very very problematic. Because you know an entire year of somebody’s life repeating that entire session and so that’s what happened to many other people in UI but you know because of the peculiarity of our calendar and the way we run the MB exams here we were able to find a sort of catch that was that prevented people from having to redo their MB exams again so people are repeating a year in quote but they are not actually losing time. And you know we’re also spending more time than other people in school even. So, for instance, now, my classmates who have the issue, so they are paying the fees for this new session, right? But they are not going back to 500-Level to redo the year again. Just that on paper they are repeating, but it’s not affecting the actual calendar or their participation in school activities. That’s what it is. 

Okay. And the number of those people is around 30? 

Yes, around 30. I think for my class, they were like 17 plus. Because I compiled the list. I was in very close contact with Professor Lawal during the entire issue, so I compiled the list for my class, 2K23 class, 2K24 class, and even 2K25 class. 

Apart from that, there were some more obvious challenges. Especially, of course, you already mentioned the UCH blackouts and the MDCAN strike. And going forward, these events definitely have lasting repercussions on the Ibadan medicine student community. So what do you have to say on the handling of these crises? 

So, with regard to the handling, I think it was a very sad situation because the strike started in December. I think December 13th, to be precise, and at that time, it was just a two-week warning strike. And I think throughout the entire strike process, I think one thing that I can say MDCAN-UCH did right was that they kept us in the loop. So we were not devoid of adequate information. They would always invite us and tell us this is what’s happening. And through that, we were able to also keep your UIMSAites in the loop and tell them, okay, this is what’s happening, this is what’s happening with the strike. But I think it was rather unfortunate. It was a situation of where elephants fight, the grass suffers. And so within our own capacity, we did our best. For instance, we fixed multiple meetings with the UI management, we met the VC twice, we met the DVC acad, DVC admin separately, we met the college management, called for a meeting with the college management, we spoke to MDCAN multiple times. And we also involved the Student Union, because it was just MB;BS and BDS. So we explored all the things that we could do. And also, there were some other things; we also tried to reach out to external parties, but we did not really get so much progress with that. It’s just rather unfortunate, to be honest, because we even went for, I think there was a meeting, I can’t remember the name of the body now, it’s a student body. We went for a sort of press conference in Lagos with the student union. That was how far we went to bring publicity to this issue. We also did graphics and all those things. But at the end of the day, the entire thing still boiled down to the court of the UI management and MDCAN, and the UI management having to accede to their demands. 

Everything we could do within our own capacity we did it and if you remember it was the day before we were supposed to protest against this prolonged strike that you know it was called off so thankfully there was no protest so as much as we could do in our capacity as students we ensured that we explored all the avenues same thing for the blackouts we had three protests. I was around doing those protests, and we made sure that they were as peaceful as possible as medical students, but we’re still making sure that we are not ridden over despite the fact that we are students of UI who are schooling here in UCH. 

Regarding the blackout specifically, at the time, the initial measure from let’s say, ABH and UIMSA and student bodies here was the boycotting of classes, and then of course, after that there were many meetings with college, there was the generator, which lasted for some time, then that ended but it wasn’t to around the hundred-day mark that we eventually protested as a collective. 88! 88, yes. What do you feel about this sequence of events? Do you feel that progress could have been made if the protest came earlier? And do you feel that the protest even had an effect in effecting change? 

Yes, I think what happened was very sad, to be honest. The fact that we stayed for 109 days without light as medical students or as students is very, very perfect. It’s symbolic of a very, very big problem that we are facing here in this school. The initial sit-at-home was to draw attention to the issues. When you have to deal with issues like this, you have to take a stepwise procedure. So the first thing is that you have to consult, and you have to have consultations with the management. You do not go into all-blown protests without having consulted them. When the sit-at-home happened, we were invited, and a temporary stopgap measure of the generator was provided, which did not last long. However, when the generator stopped was around the first week of December, and December 13th was when, I think we went home like a week after that for the holidays. So during that period, it was just like, the generator had stopped, and then we were providing some sort of water needs, power, which was not really as adequate as the big generator, but then it was just like maybe a week after that, before we now went home. There was a strike so people were not on campus so the effect of the prolonged strike was not that significant, because for instance now, ABH which has like 600 plus participants, had maybe like 200 and something at that time so the issues of water scarcity was not very significant or severe as it should have been. And most people were at home. So it was just like an issue that was lingering. But even though people were not here, we were still trying to find the solution to it as much as we could. And so eventually, in January, I think that was January 22nd, we protested. Even at that time, people were still not at school. We liaised with student management, with SU, to have that protest. So I think that, well, somebody might argue that we might have protested earlier. But looking back, I think the fact that we were on strike was one of the things that made it drag off for so long. And yes, I believe that the protest actually had an effect. Because up until that time, everybody was whispering in the shadows about the light issue. But after that protest, we know that the Minister of Power came to UCH. Despite the fact that he’s from Ibadan, he had not come to this place, despite the fact that we had three months already of the blackout. And then when he came, there was a second protest. I wasn’t there, but I knew when it happened. And then after that protest, they restored light back to UCH and conspicuously disconnected ABH, which was a very big problem. And then we protested again before the light was restored. So it would be disingenuous to say that those protests didn’t have any effect because we literally had to call attention to the silent suffering that we were having to suffer here in the University College Hospital. 

Regarding all these matters, how would you describe the relationship between UIMSA and these external bodies? How would you describe the future of education in UI generally? Because UI as a whole is still having many serious problems as regards fees and everything. As a student leader, what do you see as the way forward? 

So when you say external bodies, are you talking about SU or what bodies specifically? 

I mean government as well as university management. Because let’s say with blackouts, we have a gripe with, more like the federal government, something like school fees, we have a gripe with more of the university management. And like, there are a lot of challenges students are facing in general, of course you’re familiar. So, what do you see as the way forward regarding this? 

Well, I think that what we’ve been doing, I think we can just expand on this. I’ll explain in this way. So, for instance, last year when there was the protest against the Fee Hike and then the power rationing in UI, I remember that, I know that usually people say that there is a disconnect between UI and UCH, right? I mean, people feel that those in UCH are separate. They are like two campuses. So oftentimes, many of our challenges here will go ignored. But I think the last administration led by Oloye Aweda, actually, at least to an extent, they were very, very present with regards to our challenges. I know that he came here multiple times alongside his excos during the blackout. He also provided fuel for us. During the protests also for the school fees issue, I know a number of UIMSAites were there. I was also present myself,  I joined them later in the morning. So I think that when it comes to consultation and the confrontational part, which most of us would not like but might have to work on eventually if we want to get students right protected. Student leaders here can continue this collaboration because, like I mentioned, also, look at the protests. The protests were not just done by only medical students. We had the number of UItes, and that was because it was under the umbrella of the UI Student Union. And it was because of… So when we talk about those protests, it wasn’t just UIMSA. We had UADS, we had past SU excos. So we had, like, a very good community of student leaders. And I think one thing I really appreciate as a student leader was the fact that I had great people that I worked with. The UADS president, Kenny Omotosho. Our former SU president, Samson Tobiloba, and the ABH chairperson, Ayotunde Oni. So we had a very good synergistic relationship alongside the UISU. So I think what should obtain is that the current group of leaders should continue to work together. It’s no longer a one-man team because when you come together, you have a stronger voice, and people will take you even more seriously compared to if you guys are fighting your battles individually, and they can easily pick you off and say, oh, you stop this, you stop this here, and everything now comes to nought eventually. So that’s what I’m talking about.

How would you describe your relationship with the student union government during your tenure? Because there were two student union governments in your tenure, so how would you describe it? 

For the majority of my tenure, I had to work with, or for the most of my tenure, I had to work with Aweda Bolaji, and I think I had a very good relationship with him. I think I already explained you know, the work we do with regards to light, power supply, and the other issues regarding student welfare. I didn’t really have so much time to work with the current administration, but I think that I wish them all the best. It’s the new president that I’ll be working mostly with them. We’ve not really had any significant challenges that we’ve had to deal with. So I will have to refer to the SU level. 

Wait, so you say at this point that there is no relationship with the current Student Union? 

There is, definitely. I’m saying that we’ve not had any significant problems like we had in the past. But definitely for normal day-to-day running activities, where we need to disseminate information or anything that has to do with issues that students have, definitely reach out to the students’ union. The current student union, that’s the new one. 

Okay. But what about the termination of the MDCAN strike? Did that coincide with the current? 

Okay, yes, I think the date. I think the new administration was April?

Yeah, they’ve been in for a semester in UI already. 

Sorry, sorry. No, the semester here and there is a little bit… Okay, yes, so we worked with the Students’ Union with regard to that. For instance, we had some collaborative issues when we went to Lagos. I can’t remember the name of that association again, but it’s like a counter body to the NANS, so it’s also a student body, the National Association of the University Students. NUNS? Yes. So yeah, we went there. I don’t think we paid a visit to any of these people together. I think most of those visits had happened before the new SU administration was sworn in. But while we were working, okay, we paid the visits to MDCAN together.

The meetings with the VC and DVCs held before the new administration. And I think we also had some issues with the protest. So we were initially supposed to protest and there were some in-house discussions that we had had that should have made us protest on the day engineering students were being inducted in the school because we felt it was unfair that some students were moving on with their lives, becoming inducted engineers while we had been off out of school for about three months plus at that time and so we had already put a lot of things in place with regards to a protest but the SU bailed on us. I remember a release was made to that effect regarding the SU bailing on us and then subsequently we had another meeting with the ABH town hall where Brownites mandated that with or without the UISU we’re going ahead with the protest and after that UISU came on board they made a release and then thankfully we didn’t have to protest eventually so yeah that’s what happened I remember clearly

Okay, just regarding union politics, during the last SU election, how do I say it? Let’s say, there was a lot of discussion within UIMSA to put it mildly on the candidate, and UIMSA eventually endorsed him about a few days to the election. So what do you have to say about this process, and what really happened there?

Well, I think endorsements in UIMSA, as far as I think it should be done, should not be, for things like student Union politics, It should not really be an automatic process, in the sense that if we are pushing people to be ambassadors of the association in something like external politics, we need to take our time to screen these individuals. And I think that was what was lacking in UIMSA. Because initially, the release was made by myself, the then Senate Chair and the then Congress Chancellor, where we encouraged UIMSAites to support the candidate, but also to vet people and support the UIMSAite. But it was not an explicit endorsement, because we had not done anything in-house where we would bring together stakeholders, and by stakeholders, we mean class leaders, excos, the Senate, the Congress, to come together and say, okay, this person, are we pushing this person as the voice of the UIMSA, as the representative of UIMSA? And so since that was not done, we didn’t have that until that Senate meeting, where it was mandated that, even though we did not have that process, which I think should be the due process, because other associations do it. Faculty of Law, which I know does it, many halls of residence also do the same thing, where they invite those candidates before they are said to be the candidates of the hall. 

I’m not very enthusiastic about carrying the candidacy of a person automatically by affiliation because that is fraught with many problems. It’s a sort of identity politics, which we must be very, very careful about. Regardless, there’s going to always be the cry that, okay, he’s one of us, or he’s a part of us, let’s see how we can support him. So I think going forward, what would be best is that, well, the new set of leaders will have to be the ones to decide that. Well, I think my own advice would be that even if there will be an endorsement process, it should be a rigorous process, it should not be an automatic process. And whoever would be said to be a flag-bearer of UIMSA should be somebody who has proven himself, and has also gone through some sort of structured framework to know, okay, this person, are you fit to go there and serve? 

But what do you believe really? What do you think was the reason why he wasn’t vetted on time and openly, because at the time, only that emergency senate meeting happened, but that one really deviated from its purpose. So what’s happened there? 

I think at that time, because the decision regarding endorsement was not single-handedly made by me. I remember there was a meeting between myself, the then Senate Chair and the then Congress Chancellor where we discussed. At that time, we were really of the opinion that we didn’t really need to do an endorsement. Especially with the entire idea of identity politics and the challenges that come with it. Though I think closer to the election, the entire tide shifted, and it became a bit… It seemed like more and more people were becoming more vocal about thinking that there was a need for UIMSA to endorse a candidate, right? So, contrary to the initial conversation that we had, that we thought that maybe we shouldn’t play the identity politics this year and just encourage people to vote for whoever they’re going to vote for. But when it became clear that, oh, there was going to be a need for some sort of endorsement closer to the election, that was when we had a Senate meeting. An emergency meeting can be called, maybe when there is something that is a very topical issue in the association that has to be discussed. And in that meeting, it was decided that there was going to be an endorsement.

So I think now that we’ve seen that closer to the elections, things might change, even if there’s an initial perspective that they may be known for. So I think it’s something that should now be explored further. If there’s an issue, maybe a student union election, someone is going from UIMSA. The leaders of the association should start the process early and say, okay, are we endorsing or not? If we are endorsing, how are we going about the endorsement process? So I think that’s what should be better done, moving forward.

In the second part of this interview, we will delve deeply into the manifesto of Inioluwa Joshua and explore what promises he was able or unable to fulfil to UIMSAites, and why.