A 53 year old student, Mazi Alex Onu, has been elected as the President of the Students’ Union Government (SUG) at the Ignatius Ajuru University of Education in Port Harcourt.
Onu, a final-year Political Science student, secured the victory in an election held on Wednesday, October 22, 2025.
The election of a 53-year-old to a student executive role is highly unusual in the university politics, which are typically dominated by younger undergraduates.
Ignatius Ajuru University of Education, a state-owned institution, operates under regulations that appear to allow any registered student to contest a union position. While there is a Federal Government minimum entry age of 16 years for universities, the absence of an explicit maximum age limit for contesting student elections, a common policy across many Nigerian universities, allowed Onu to run.
On the social media world, there have been mixed reactions about Onu’s victory. A social media user wrote;
If he is qualified to be admitted to school and pays his fees, then he is qualified to contest SUG elections. There is no maximum age to being a student
Some argued that the role of a student leader should primarily be held by younger students who represent the majority and understand their unique issues.
One user, who questioned the situation wrote:
Wait, is it that there’s no young person in that school or what? SUG president at the age of 53?
Onu’s tenure is set to test the scope and dynamics of student leadership in the higher education.
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