Dear Students,
I write this letter to you from one of the safest places on campus – Blessed House. The words in this letter will make people either to like or hate me but I don’t really mind.
As the days are unfolding for us to elect our student leaders, I will like to remind you of some of the things we students have done and what we need to do when given the opportunity to vote.
Voting during an election is a matter of choice but the choices we make in selecting our fellow students to govern us should have a corresponding improvement on our lives on campus. Some student leaders over years have failed woefully in their quest to fulfill the unrealistic promises they made during the electioneering campaign.
The incompetence of such leaders should be something we should ponder over and start apportioning part of the blame on us because we voted them into power. When we are given the opportunity to vote, we cast our ballot based on the depth of a candidates pocket, political and hall affiliations, religion, ethnicity and other trivial reasons. The issues and the realistic promises some candidates preached in their manifestos are relegated to the latter.
This protracted practice is a disgrace to we students because as intellectuals we should know better. Voting for individuals based on those trivial reasons is a prelude to mismanagement and corruption during their tenure of office. Such individuals (especially presidents) appoint their friends and cronies to certain positions based on the time and resources they invested during the election and this is indicative of the winner takes all syndrome in our political system.
Other leaders (treasurer, financial secretary, and general secretary ) team up with the presidents at various levels to steal and rob us dry of most of our annual contributions we make to the SRC, JCRC and departments.
Such student leaders are well known for what I call ” camouflaged and disguised ” achievements. I can say on authority and without fear that any student of UEW can perform such achievements. They provide us with notice boards, dustbins, sports jerseys with questionable costs, magazines and some ghost achievements they include in their handing over ceremony speech.
These conventional achievements are important but student leaders can do better than that. The annual dues we contribute accumulates into thousands of Cedis but still they can’t solve basic problems we face on campus.
The lack of vision and the desire to reap their investments are the reasons for the poor performances of our student leaders especially SRC presidents. They preach about some so called mission and vision statements which are needless, unrealistic and over ambitious.
The lack of P.A system in our lecture rooms, poor lighting on the muddy paths we commute to our lecture rooms are basic problems that need urgent attention. Our student leaders fail to apply the Abraham Maslow’s theory of needs they learned at in high school when they are outlining their policies and am never surprised.
I would like to encourage fellow students to vote wisely based on the issues raised by the candidates. Some of them have some questionable and unrealistic mission statements so please vote wisely.
Sadat Umar Nuhu
Political Science Department
UEW
