In an attempt to understand how UIMSAITES feel concerning the payment of their dues, the UIMSA Clinical Press tried to sample the opinions of UIMSAITES using the two categories below:
▪︎Why don’t you pay your dues at the appropriate time?
▪︎Why do you pay your dues at the appropriate time?
We got the responses above. The highest number of responses coming from the 2k24 and 2k19 classes. We will summarily look through the opinions.
A. Why don’t you pay your dues at the appropriate time?
Majority of the responses were lack of money (38%) and procrastination (34.6%). Other responses included the quality of UIMSA package (19.2%), the lack of encouragement (15.4%), as well as no sense of belonging to the association.
B. Why do you pay your dues at the appropriate time?
The major reasons were that they pay their dues because they are UIMSAites (44.8%) and to support the association (41.4%). Other reasons include because they see the need to (37.9%) and that they feel responsible for the association.
We also took statement from some of the leaders of the association on concerning due payment and the given deadline
1. MISS JAACHI, UIMSA PRESIDENT
UIMSA dues are the basic dues every student in the department of Medicine & Surgery, University of Ibadan is meant to pay as a part of their duty to the University of Ibadan Medical Students’ Association (UIMSA). It is currently 2,500 for Stalites and 3,000 for Freshers.It is the duty/responsibility of members of the Association to pay their dues to the Association. Just like every UIMSAite has rights in the Association, they have responsibilities as well. Payment of dues is necessary for the running of any structured body in our society today.Secondly, this is written in the Constitution that guides the actions of all UIMSAites.Finally, the dues are used for the running of different activities of the Association. We use the dues to cater to the health and welfare needs of UIMSAites and to organise many impactful projects during the Association like Community Health Awareness Programs, Health Week, Research Programmes, Competitions and many others.
2. HONOURABLE OBEYA
PRESS: Concerning the deliberation of the Congress to impose a deadline for the payment of UIMSA dues, you made a strong argument, why do you think this deadline is appropriate?
Hon. Obeya: I think its appropriate because ideally, take any fee e.g school fees, for example, the fees are needed to run the tenure. In the same way, UIMSA executives need UIMSA dues to run the tenure. It( the fees) is supposed to be a commitment to that tenure as a UIMSAite.Some would rather not pay until maybe they have an exam and theyre forced to pay or something. If you pay a week to the end of a tenure, really its not useful to that tenure, maybe for the next tenure it will be but for that tenure, its not. Considering the fact that we had a health week not long ago and we had to meet most of our donors and other things, and this tenure will most likely end this same year or at most a few months after this year, its perhaps better to get everything early enough.
PRESS: Thank you very much. If I understand the motion correctly, it states that UIMSAites would be denied rights as UIMSAites if they refuse to pay these dues. Do you think this would be a major incentive in making people pay? This seems to be a major repercussion, what are these rights?Hon. Obeya: Okay, to correct that, nobody can deny you the right to be a UIMSAite. Youre a UIMSAite by virtue of the fact that youve been admitted into Medicine and Surgery and youll be a UIMSAite till you graduate. What we just said was that the association, UIMSA also has to do certain things for every member. For example, let me use a very distant example, as a UIMSAite, I have the right to use UIMSA secretariat anytime I want as long as someone else is not using it at that time. All I have to do is ask for the key to the place. Since I have that right, what we now did is to say, If I have not paid my dues, the executive council can deny me of that right since I have not paid my dues.There are other things also, like say someone can serve as a member of say, the Quiz club. Next year, when theyre applying for the provost award, they can say they served on the quiz club. By the ruling, the executive council has a right to say that you did not serve as… because youd be gaining something from UIMSA in that way at least adding to something, no matter how little. It is not really like we want to blackmail people or anything. It is that for example, SU(Student Union), the University collects SU’s dues as part of school fees right? Ehm other faculties have partnerships with their HODs and deans. Sequel to everything that happened with #No to 100k which UIMSA’s leaders actively participated in, the relationship with the college broke down, and till now were still paying for it.So if UIMSA leaders fought on behalf of students and it affected their relationship with the college, it doesnt make sense that on the part of UIMSA too, were now making the association crumble on all fronts cause we cannot fund anything. At the end of the day, normally, the executive council is supposed to take the dues, give money to the press, give money to Dokita, give money to the senate, give money to the congress, and give money for a lot of things, reserve some money for the welfare of members. But we cannot do all of this, but we now have to outsource funds, usually beg founders, donors and all of that now use it to run all of these things which really doesnt make a lot of sense.
PRESS: Thank you very much.
3. MISS ORJI CHRISTABEL, UIMSA FINANCIAL SECRETARY
MISS UCHE-ORJI: Payment of dues is a duty that UIMSAites have. It is a responsibility that UIMSAites owe to the association. Payment of dues is something that’s actually very basic. In places where things work dues payment would be done alongside registration of course forms or registration for MB like it used to be in the past, and then we wouldn’t have a lot of people evading dues. Also the dues are actually very small compared to what it takes to run the association in this time when market prices are skyrocketing every day. The executive council just released their year plan and we have a whole lot of activities planned for the year. We need money to run these things and where is the bulk of the money that we need supposed to come from? It’s supposed to come from the dues. We have 936 members in the association that are required to pay their dues. I think a hundred and fifty or so of them in 100 level will pay #3000 naira and then the rest are supposed to pay #2500. It’s just the bare minimum that you owe to UIMSA as a UIMSAite to pay your dues because throughout the course of the tenure there are a lot of activities that are tailored to cater to UIMSAites. It would really be a disservice to enjoy all of those things and not pay your dues.I also want to debunk the idea that a lot of people have that they’re paying their dues to get packages. You are not paying your dues as a UIMSAite to get a packages. I hear people say things like, they don’t want the package so they won’t pay their dues. You are not paying your dues to get packages. The package distribution is like a token UIMSA gives to you at the end of a tenure well spent. It’s because people don’t pay dues that we now cater to only those that pay when packages are being distributed. For example, how much does it take to buy a water bottle and a jotter in the market? (That’s what was given in the just concluded tenure.) You pay #2500. At least #1000 out of that #2500 will be spent on packages so you’re basically paying #1500 for the whole tenure that is supposed to run for eight, nine, twelve months and we’re supposed to do activities all through the tenure. But somebody is going to sit down and say, they should source for funds. Nigeria is hard for everybody. There’s no money anywhere. So the barest minimum is a duty that you owe the association, to pay your dues. I don’t know how to stress it. It’s because we’re in a place where things are the way they are and we are scrambling for funds. It is something that people should essentially do. It’s like saying ‘why should you pay your tax as a Nigerian? What do you gain from Nigeria?’ It’s just something that’s really basic.