SEMESTER EIGHT, DIRTY POLITICS; dirty in literal sense!

Semester eight, as finalists like myself affectionately call it has finally come. It has come like that bowl of tom brown and milk one orders at Conti Fee-paying canteen. From the days of senior colleagues  instilling the fear of university exams-life into us which contrasts the usual ‘university life is full of chilling’ stories we were told , to the days of waking up as early as 5 am to join registration queues infront of the main library, to the days of eating half-boiled yam, to the days of sitting aimlessly infront of Indece hall looking at busty girls (fearing to talk to them because of the tendency of getting an embarrassment of a lifetime), and then finally to the times when second and third academic years just breezed by us till semester eight, one can’t deny the uniqueness of the much awaited semester eight. The desire to achieve in one semester what we weren’t able to achieve in the other seven intensifies. For instance, boys use this last chance to get future wives; a mission that has for one reason or the other failed to bring an iota of success. This perhaps explains why final year guys are extremely caring, gentle, and sometimes flirty. 

Asides the final year vibe, second semester on its own comes with some unequaled breeze. Unlike the first semesters which because of its shorter nature, and relatively tougher examinations, the climax of activities are deferred to the next’s. 

As the wind of national and parliamentary elections is blowing, so are the bells of SRC and other campus elections tolling. It’s barely two weeks since school resumed and I hear about twenty five students have shown interest in contesting for the SRC presidency. The whole school is littered with campaign papers and posters and the only word I can use to describe this act of desperate politicking is dirty politics; the word dirty, more in its literal than metaphorical sense. People who have played no role in student advocacy whatsoever have just emerged out of nowhere, and before the whistle for campaigning is blown, the whole place is littered. 

Some of the posters and inscriptions that have littered campus.

What an eye-sore. Is that what politics has become? No intellectual engagement whatsoever, only driven by the desire to accumulate power (and wealth, as alleged). 

In the entire time I’ve been in Kwame Nkrumah’s dearest school, I’ve never witnessed second semester commencing on this tensed political note before, making me wonder if the elections are starting tomorrow. Normally, acts of this sort of (desperate) campaigns are suppressed until nominations and filing for political positions are officially opened. When this is done, a couple of debates and public vetting systems are put in place and then when the time is right, we go to the polls and vote for the most good-looking dude, or the guy whose name has a catchy acronym (ranging from BNI,TAG, FIFA, DNA, SAK, FBI to STDs and the likes). We have disregarded the assessment of people’s qualifications, skills and competence, and have given power to folks who buy our votes with material stuff or the promise of making us a part of the executive committee, or the promise of putting our names on the KBN list, or easing our accommodation burden by promising us rooms at SRC hostel and the likes (the allegations are so many). 

Why don’t we actually change the way we do things instead of reducing campus politics to this extremely ‘donkomi’ level? The incumbents, why don’t we have some public accountability scheme that would make them give account for how far their campaign promises have seen manifestation? If there was some proper accountability scheme in all universities, VALCO hall in UCC would’ve been painted and wouldn’t have been the most untidy building I’ve seen my whole life. And to really appreciate the effort of SRC, why don’t we know the difference between the school’s administration projects, and that of the SRC, and the ones that are joined so that praise would be given accordingly? Soon, these desperados would start-off making unfulfillable promises, and cooked stories like, “I just lost my Aunty” would suffice in a bid to gain sympathy votes. Female aspirants would be giving out free smooches, hugs and the likes to convince floating male voters etc. Some girls however have done their politics in decency. But because of our degenerated politics, nobody gives decent politics a chance. Many girls’ chances of winning the elections (by doing decent politics) are as slim as Chelsea’s chances of finishing in the top ten.  

Interesting political times ahead people… don’t give out your vote cheaply…