Being the text of speech delivered by outgoing pioneer President of the National Association of Information and Media Studies (NAIMSS-BUK), Mohammad Dahiru Lawal, at the first transitioning of the association on Monday 14th October, 2019.
Protocols
It gives me great pleasure and an absolute sense of fulfilment to witness this moment, the first ever transitioning of our dear NAIMSS from an outgoing regime to an incoming one.
This moment is an epoch as well as a historic one. It is a moment of absolute testimony to what we have achieved in less than one year.
This moment determines the next direction of our never ending successes at NAIMSS.
It wasnt an easy ride I must confess, because unlike our pairs who were leading a path that had been towed with numerous trails, ours was a new path that had no trail. Our mission had already been curved for us by the visionary vision of our founding fathers, it then became our own duty to go through that path and leave foot prints on the sands of time – a daunting challenge, but one filled with dogged Faith in what the future holds, thus, pushing us forward in working towards fulfilling the basic bargain our leadership responsibility demands, in order to lay a solid foundation for generations to come.
Our administrations first task, was to solidly define and institute the structure of NAIMSS. Through this, we were able to get a visionary Executive Council, a working Legislative arm, an Independent Electoral Commission and various Presidential Committees tasked with oversight functions and presidential policy implementation mandate in accordance to service to the people.
Through this, we were able to bequeath a patriotic patron for the association in person of the Wazirin Kano, Alhaji Saad Shehu Gidado.
We also succeeded in formerly unveiling NAIMSS to the University Community and General Public, with our first public lecture themed; Information and Media Studies, the Career the Prospects. Furthermore, we launched our first journal IMS The Journey So Far.
Our award night was one of a kind, it was a night where merit was matched with recognition on the red carpet and we had the distinctive privilege of hosting the new President of the Students Union Government, Comerade Sadi Garba Said and his team at the occasion.
We also able to boost the image of the association through our NAIMSS identity card, NAIMSS branded shirt, produced two NAIMSS song, proposed a NAIMSS anthem and organized an awareness walk across the University campus.
This administration has also applied for an office space that will serve as secretariat for conducting NAIMS Executive functions in the nearest future.
We have also succeeded in distributing capacity and preparing people to take challenge, those who took their responsibilities seriously would testify to the difference it made.
Nothing gives me pleasure beyond the spirit of unity that we have been able to kindle among ourselves, in IMS everybody belongs to everybody. Our spirit of commoradorie is unrivalled and built to endure beyond our years in the University.
We have extended hands to newly borne, newly weds and those in need. We have organized get together and iftar programs to enrich our bond. Our bond culminated into our success producing the current Vice President of the Students Union Government despite our minority and inspite of the fact that we do not yet have a level 4 badge.
After our open invitation to all students of the Department that we were readily available and always accessible to address issue in the Department that may concern them, those who did will testify that we stayed true to our promise and went ahead to make the academic well-being of our students a matter of sacred import. We have intervened at the Faculty levels over issues of unfavourable exam timetable and had gone ahead to ensure adherence to arranged agreements, organized tutorials and focused group discussion in addition to tending to any other academic issues that may so arise during the cause of our stewardship.
We are conscious that our interventions in personal issues of academic relevance is key to our performance index
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Most strategic in our approach to visionary leadership is provision of the Association’s Presidential Blueprint for sustainable development. This blueprint is mapped into: Enhanced Learning Project (ELP), Human Capital Development Project (HUCADEP), Media Practice Enhancement Project (M-PEP), Financial Expansion Project (FEP), Infrastructure Enhancement Project (IEP), Need Based Interventions (NBI) and Extra-Curricular Activities (ECA) all of which carefully covers areas of interest that will benefit IMS students and may serve as guideline for successive regimes.
With the donation of infomedia.ng (Infomedia News) as the media arm of the Association by the Publisher of PR Nigeria – Mr. Yusha’u Shua’aib – our M-PEP project is beginning to paying off and if utilized properly may make the Department Association one of the richest in the history of Nigerian University system.
Further to our achievement in surpassing the trails of our pairs in the alternative Department, we have been able to secure exclusive slots for our students to attend exclusive seminars and workshops hence the maxim “IMS Everywhere.” With our little effort, our students are indeed “everywhere” including on air, contributing to burning discourse across media stations in kano.
Our lecturers have also been highly supportive. Through them, IMS have represented the University in various debates and has also led the University in the Facebook Global Digital Challenge, emerging with a honourable mention from Facebook for the first time ever since the University has been participating in the last three years.
Recently, along with Presidents of other Department in the Faculty, we established the Communication Students Association (COMSA) and I was able to negotiate a fair power sharing formula for the Department. If nothing, it gives me pleasure that our own IMS constitution was adapted for this historic feat.
Financially, being a baby association, we came in broke, there was absolutely no money, but we went ahead to expand the finances of the association to over N200,000.00 mostly through donations.
The Departmental management supported us with N10,000.00, personal assistant to the current vice chancellor of the National Open University, Abdulrahman Abdullahi supported us with N100,000.00, Investigative Journalist, Jaafar Jaafar supported us with N20,000.00 and PR Maverick and publisher of PR Nigeria, Alhaji Yushau Shuaib, supported us with N50,000.00 (25,000 for infomedia and 25,000 for NAIMSS), while the representative of the Wazirin Kano bought two copies of our magazine for N5,000.00 and also about N16,000.00 from expression of interest form sold to aspirants by IMSIECO.
With greatly reduced cost of governance under our regime, we spent N10,000.00 in our iftar get togethers, N25,000 in printing banners, invitation cards, flyers and logistics for our events, N25,000.00 for event refreshments and take away, N20,000.00 for printing copies of our maiden journal, 18,000.00 on the award night among other expenditures.
Summarily, NAIMSS has a balance of N41,000.00 from a 100,000.00 trench, N19,000 remitted associations due and N16,000.00 IMSIECO due, and N5,000 sale of Journal thus, this regime will be inheriting a balance of N81,000.00.
With the official unveiling of NAIMSS which launches it into the University Community and the General Public, and all the other achievements to our credit, this administration have arrived at a juncture of personal fulfilment.
As far as this Journey has gone, I can retire confidently as President knowing that I have been able to lead the way in paving our own path, in defining our own mission in bringing to the students of IMS and its generations to come a standard vision, in underlining and servicing the very fundamentals that outlines our core values as Captains of a New world dimension.
on my honour, we have defended your rights we have protected your interests in the best way we can. To those whose lives we managed to touch I wish we could do more, to those who we couldn’t touch I am sincerely sorry because we tried, perhaps it wasnt good enough.
As we hand over to the next regime, we wish them good luck their administration and we pray that they would do better than us and they would have successors who would do better than them and so on because that is the only trajectory of sustainable development.
NAIMSS is a family and what makes families unique is that they rise and fall together. Those who understand the value of familyhood understand the value of NAIMSS
We never said we were perfect but in our imperfections arise our greatness.
This is to our mistakes
This is to our success
This is to our greatness
I thank you all for giving us the opportunity to serve, I will live to cherish this moment through time. Thank you.
Mohammed Dahiru Lawal,
Pioneer Executive President, NAIMSS
14th October, 2019
