THE POLITICAL RACE 2018(UDS WA CAMPUS)

Nana Kofi Benjamin writes:

THE POLITICAL RACE

University for Development Studies

We are in the midst of furious campaigning ahead of this school’s SRC executives' election. As there are a lot of candidates contesting for various portfolios, the number of posters that can be squeezed around one light pole on a street is best left to the imagination. Trees and the principal roads leading to the various lecture halls are decorated with all kinds of posters with different inscriptions asking for votes from the students. You will see “I’m for Nkatie” around a tree and you begin to wonder if trees are also going to vote.
The decibel level around the school and the streets of Bamahu generally has gone up as every candidate wants his name to be heard by all students. This sometimes irritates most of the students who do not want to be disturbed by noise. Others do not just want to hear the names of some candidates with reasons best known to them. Some students wholeheartedly support a candidates with the aim of enjoying some benefits when the candidate comes into power.
Political campaigning in UDS WA CAMPUS has its own rules and quirks if I may put it that way, the candidates are running advertisements on social media, from one lecture hall to another with others buying food for students when they meet them at the various food joints. Compulsory greetings by candidates become an etiquette which they cannot do away with because that is the only way they think can draw the attention of the students they do not know to themselves but nobody really knows if all these changes anybody’s mind.
Promises they say are easy to make but for it to be fulfilled is a case on its own. Candidates try to bring out catchy manifestoes which are pregnant with promises that looks as beautiful as Christmas jollof. It is imperative, however, that you get a very catchy message that will win the hearts of many students but the most important aspect of it all is that, you must know that by all means some students will rise up one day to demand for the promises you made which have not been fulfilled.
You can have the most well thought programmes and plans for dealing with the many vows that afflicts the university community but if you do not have a catchy tune and have a nice looking appearance you are not going to make any headway. Many students like some Ghanaians look at the physical appearance of the candidate and vote him or her into power. The worse part of it all is that most students do not vote at all because they see the election to be of no use to them which undermines the democracy of the university.
It is at times perplexing when after canvassing for vote for about eight months a candidate end up getting just 20 votes at the end of the process. Haha! That makes the game interesting at times.
Third year students become first year students and begin attending lectures with the first years all in the name of making themselves known to the first years. I guess that is a nice strategy anyway but the question is does it work out for them?
If after all these campaigns an opponent realizes that his opponent is gaining more attention than him or her, he will have no other option than to invite the services of “uncle propaganda”. This is because propaganda has for some time now become the bus driver of Ghanaian Politics which in one way or the other has helped a lot of parties to achieve political success. One is accused of numerous cooked charges which at times he or she cannot extricate himself from but as to whether it changes the minds of the electorates or not I cannot just best tell.
When all these end, the electorates who for a reason see the leadership of the university as people with kleptomaniac fingers because they have been infected with the disease of kleptomania  from their predecessors begin to chant “No money NO vote! NO money no vote” anytime these contestants go out to canvass for vote.
I share view with most of these students because over the years the leadership of the university have been best described as occupants of Public Offices who offer nothing to the students they are representing but pure demonstrations of corruption.
No wonder most of the executives are nick-named “Ambassadors”.
Oh yes I mean ambassadors of corruption. This compares   most of the electorates to request for certain things before they vote for them. If for nothing at all they are much aware of the winner takes all syndrome on campus.
Mr. Commissioner are you there?
I must applaud the electoral commission for their super excellent work they have done over the years on ensuring successful elections on campus. My humble appeal to Mr. Commissioner is that as we are dancing to the tune of democracy let us all do well to dance very well. Over the years, most if not all candidates still campaign on the day of elections which to me is just undemocratic. Something should be done about it to help make our democracy on campus great and strong. I wish all the candidates the best of lack as they go about with their campaign.
Long live Ghana,
Long live UDS WA – CAMPUS
BY CITIZEN KOFI
THE DESSERT VOICES CREW
DICD LEVEL 200


TYPED BY MODESTYCLARKS
23rd March, 2018.