BUSU president taking legal action
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 30/04/2020 (1964 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
The president of the Brandon University Students’ Union is taking the union to court over its failure to ratify his election win, he told the Sun on Wednesday.
As the Sun first reported on Wednesday, incumbent Olusola Akintola received the most votes for president and his wife Janet the most votes for vice-president internal in the Feb. 28 election, but the union’s council has yet to ratify the results for those positions because of an internal investigation being carried out into the election.
Now the couple has filed a legal application calling for the courts to order BUSU to ratify the results of the election and order an injunction preventing the positions of president and vice-president internal from becoming vacant when their terms expire at midnight on April 30 and preventing the student union from advertising that the positions need to be filled.
Additionally, the application calls for the student union to cover the Akintolas’ legal costs and other relief as determined by the court.
A copy of the application, as well as an affidavit filed by the Akintolas, was provided to the Sun by Olusola.
According to a document posted in the student union’s Facebook group on Wednesday, the Elections and Referenda Disciplinary Interpretation and Enforcement Board, more commonly known as the ERDIE board, two matters were investigated after the election.
The first matter was an investigation into some discrepancies found in the number of online ballots cast for the election. However, the board said no direct actionable items were found during an investigation by the board and the university’s IT department.
The second issue was the submission of three complaints against the same unnamed candidate from students saying they felt pressured by that candidate to vote for them. One of these complaints was made through the university’s dean of students.
The post said that because the returning officer for the election was not co-operative, the COVID-19 pandemic and the pending end of the current council’s term, a full-scale investigation was not ordered and no specific instructions for the ratification of candidates will be issued by the ERDIE board.
Olusola sent out an email to the student body later Wednesday, of which a copy was provided to the Sun, stating that there is “a conspiracy to prevent some of us from taking office” and suggesting that certain members of the union’s council may be trying to “maintain unelected power.”
“I am left with no other choice but to proceed with my pending legal recourse,” his email concluded.
The Sun attempted to reach ERDIE board chair Natashalee Thompson again on Wednesday, but did not hear back by press time.
A special meeting of the student union’s council has been called for today at 5 p.m., although the posted notice of the event does not specify its purpose.
» cslark@brandonsun.com
» Twitter: @ColinSlark