Sorbari Loveday (5th left) with Hon. Abinye Pepple of the RSHA, and his executives
Quiet, unassuming and handsome, but Loveday Sorbari, a native of Kerebangha in Khana Local Government Area of Rivers State and the incumbent President of the University of Port harcourt Student Union Government (SUG), is vociferous when issues about his students are concerned.
The 400level Sociology student came on board as SUG President on August 3, 2018 spoke to Kristina Reports publisher/editor-in-chief, Godswill Jumbo over the phone about his achievements so far and his vision for the students of the institution, his engagements with the Professor Ndowa Lale led management, amongst other issues. Excerpts:
Kristina Reports: We have seen some very unique initiatives by you like one you recently demonstrated by going to serve your fellow students in their hostel. Now, we are wondering, that’s away from the norm, what was the motivation?
Loveday Sorbari: Thank you for that very question, right from when we had our elections, we all contested and we had so many things we put down that we wanted to do for the students and one of it is how to gain student relationship back to the student union struggle. For some years now it has been that student union government has been hijacked by the management and so the students no longer have this confidence in their leaders and the students don’t even know their leaders. They feel they are just there to eat money. They cannot come down to them. They cannot talk to them, they can’t see them, and they can’t complain to them some things they are passing through. So, I quickly put up a program to see how I can relate with my students, talk with them, share ideas, know what they are saying; so that I can know what to do. I took a walk to the hostel and this hostel cleaning is not just to go there to clean the hostel but also to know some of the challenges the students are passing through in their hostels, in their departments and other places.
So, we went there. I’m so surprised that some of the persons who took the picture did not take the one we fixed bulb, cut grasses, washed their gutters, fixed their toilets. I’m so surprised that they didn’t capture all those ones. That was it. The thing there is that we tried to make sure the students know me and know some of my excos because most of the students don’t really know us because when the elections came all students had gone home then. So, we are trying to get the students closer to the government and make them have this confidence that we are here to work with them and walk with them. And this clean-up was not just for girls’ hostel; it is just that we started from the girls hostel by this week Saturday, we will be in the boys’ hostel, Abuja campus to continue the same thing and also the clinical hostel, the medical hostel and, of course, all the hostels in Choba and Abuja campus. So, it’s not just the girls’ hostel.
KR: Prior to your coming into office, one issue that has put the University of Port Harcourt in the view heavily was the issue of students having to repeat levels they have already passed and having issues with payments for their exams and all that and the purported high handedness of the Vice Chancellor, Professor Lale. Now, with your own administration coming in, what is the relationship with the student community and the school management? What is it like?
With my administration, we have tried our best in the aspect of…before we came into office, there was no union. Then, they fixed a date for school fees to be paid, any date, once they fix a date, its final. So, when we came into office, we were able to create this relationship with the management, pay courtesy visits to them and have interactive sessions with the management and told them that some of the things that caused issues In campus is because they don’t inform the leaders of the decisions they want to take and they just take it like that. So, right now, the management in the University of Port Harcourt does not want issues and they know that this is an elected government and that any decision they take that would not favour the students is going to disturb. So, they always call us to know, negotiate, talk with them, give them the way forward on how to handle some issues. When I came into office, for the first time, they gave a date and when I went back, I told them that this date they gave for school fees to be paid they need to shift it so that students will not have issues. So, they had to extend the date for extra three months. So, the management is trying on their own side and the students always want to wait until that dying minute when you can no longer do anything, that is when they will always want to pay their school fees. But the school doesn’t work like that. I have been able to enter into that place and see what is going on. So, every management has a way of doing their own thing. The problem about Nigeria is, when there is change, we are always having difficulty in adapting to the change. I believe before I came into office that has been changed, the policy has been made. So, what I am just here to do now is to make sure those policies does not affect the students negatively.
KR: Another issue is the issue of security, lately, there has been incidences of shooting around Choba, Umuoko, Umuoda, etc…all around the University of Port Harcourt environment and even up to Rumuekini, where somebody was beheaded recently. What is your government doing strategically to engage youths, to dissuade them from violence-oriented kind of life, and to refocus their energies on their academics and future? This is because, from our findings, some of these young men involved in cult activities are students of Uniport.
OK, the truth is security is a very challenging thing and it’s the business of everybody. In Nigeria today, we are facing insecurity, so now it has gotten to the university environment and you know when students come around campus when school resumes, you see different kind of persons do things and they claim that they are students. So many persons would want to put the blame on the university and the student union. When I came into office, this thing started emanating from different communities around the university environment, I quickly ran to the Commissioner of Police, and all the police commands that are around the school. I have a relationship with them, we had several meetings even to the extent that we had to hold a town hall meeting, a stakeholders’ meeting with security people where even the Obio/Akpor Chairman was present. Even the Commissioner of police was present at the meeting, including the Area commander, SARS commander were present and different strategies were placed on ground on how we can tackle the underlying issues. I think after that meeting that very day, the level of shooting and killings in and around the school has reduced very, very well and I have not heard of any running, shooting or anything. Except this one you just told me now, I’m not informed of. Then, another thing is by next semester, we are putting up programmes, skill acquisition programmes that will really help those boys bringing up programs that will help them, talk to them, make them understand that life is not all about what they are doing. This skill acquisition program will help them after now or even while they are in school because the reason why most of them do these things is because of lack of finance. So, those are the areas and those are the things we are working with the management to do to bring them out of this. Even the program we had just few weeks ago, a church program with the help of the student union we were able to bring a man of God and the man of God has also started an entrepreneurial program where he is training almost all indigent students from campus here. So, those are the things we are doing to make sure people are being re-oriented about life and to shun cultism.
We are also planning on empowering the students in different hostels through skills acquisition. The reason why we have to move down there is also to ask them what and what they want, the kind of programs that would be good for them. They were telling us even yesterday we went there. After everything, we even took shoemakers there in order to help them because we feel their pains, to make their shoes for them. We took a tailor there, the tailor was sewing their clothes that were torn, those are the things we went there for yesterday and they were very happy receiving us.
Indeed loveday is an icon whose steps are to be emulated
He tries as much as he can to relate and tackle rising issues in the university of port Harcourt
I pray for more Grace to fudge ahead and do better
Thumbs 👍 up
A LUTA CONTINUA… VICTORIA ASCERTA