LSS President, Mr. Seyi Bamigboye Condemns CT’s Report as False and Defamatory Sequel to a recent report which blew the cover over the covert mission given to Mr. Seyi Bamigboye to fish out staff of Campus Times in Law Faculty, the President of the Law Students Society has finally opened up with a threat of possible litigation and internal penalties against CT staff, declaring the organization’s report in its July Edition currently being sold at vendor stands in UI as false and defamatory. In a Comment which he published on 18th July, 2014, the 500Level Law student noted that “members of the self-acclaimed popular press outfit are not in any way covert” to warrant an institution like the faculty to institute a search for them as claimed in the report. He went further to publish the details of some of the staff of the organization, noting that the report published in the July Edition of Campus Times was false, defamatory, indicting and capable of being a subject of internal penalties.” The rejoinder however contradicts Mr. Bamigboye’s earlier position on 17th July, 2014 when he told some members of the LSS prior to the LSS congress that he and his executive council had been providing shield for Staff of Campus Times in the Faculty as they could have disclosed the identity of these persons to the management. When contacted, CT Editor declined comment on the rejoinder but simply referred this reporter to the said publication and noted that his position was already contained in the report as published in the July Edition of Campus Time. Since it began its print version in UI in 2011, Campus Times has never shied away from keeping to it motto which is Integrity and Valour. Unlike local students’ press organization, Campus Times uses its writers’ real name not pseudonyms. True to its motto, Campus Times has ceaselessly published scoops which could have seen its writers taken up by the University Management had they been false and defamatory. So why would the organization resort to falsehood as claimed by Mr. Bamigboye, at a time when it has earned the trust of many of its readers? A source at the Faculty of Law who pleaded anonymity in order to avoid any possible backlash from Mr. Bamigboye’s taskmasters said “when a politician tells you something is white, please check it twice. CT may have an uncanny way of sourcing their news, but to say that their reports are false is way out of it. Those guys have truly redefined Campus Journalism in UI you can’t take that from them.” Another source who is a member of Mr. Bamigboye’s class said “they may not be able to provide documentary evidence to back the claim, but that report is the fact. The President contacted some guys in our (500 Level) class during the holiday to ask them who the Campus Times guys were and he even made efforts to get a copy of the paper in the course of carrying out the task.” Investigations by this reporter revealed that during the last long vacation, the President, upon securing the assignment of fishing out CT members in his faculty had used a backdoor of negotiating a deal to Produce the Faculty package with a staff of Campus Times to contact the organization. While discussing the deal, Mr. Bamigboye who was then unable to secure a copy of the publication at the vendor stand as the publication was on break, used the opportunity to request for a copy of the controversial March edition of the Publication. He later contacted some members of the faculty who told him that there was no secrecy about the activities of Campus Times as its student-members were known, and they publish their story with their real names. How false is the report as claimed by Mr. Bamigboye, a 500 Level student of the Law faculty who would rather attend to the issue than touch the personalities said “it can be seen that the President stood logic on its head when he claimed a day before his rejoinder that he shielded the staff of CT in his faculty and less than 24 hours later came out to say that they were not covert enough to warrant the faculty searching for them. Why would he shield them then in the first place? Besides, when you consider the details of the staff of the organization which he published, they were only those of CT staff in law faculty. A logical conclusion then would be that he carefully did the assignment as he was detailed to do, secured the details of those in his faculty and he didn’t bother himself with the rest. The question of falsehood and defamation of the material can then be interpreted from this logical analysis.” Reacting to the rejoinder, a resident of Queen Idia hall simply said that “I think those Campus Times guys should actually tread gently. They are send to school to study and not to be embarrassing other people. I want to believe the report is true because the part of the report that talked about Awo Hall is true and the one that touched the History lecturer is true, but they should just be careful, people could be very vindictive in this type of environment when what you say is not okay with them.” “Mr. Bamigboye has only proved himself to be very childish with that rejoinder. The report was written by a freelance writer who has graduated from Education, what disciplinary action is he intending to take against such a person? Going about publishing the names of the staff is babish since everyone, including the Vice Chancellor knows the names of staff of the organization, in fact they even published their telephone number to show you that they are not hiding. If the President had had nothing to hide, he would have kept quiet and just ignore the report. Everybody that knows what is going on in the faculty knows that the report is true, he is just fooling himself. Even the controversial report in the March edition is true, my colleagues in law just like suffering and smiling, I was in the LLT when the reporter asked a number of students how they felt about their lecturers, none of them ran good commentary about the lecturers,” a source said. This report was send in by Bidemi Adekunle via bidadekunle@gmail
Posted on: Sat, 19 Jul 2014 07:44:38 +0000