Before the world became so civilised, as the Yoruba would say, ‘when our eyes were still on our knees’, the process of selecting a leader or taking a leadership role often came with a lot of eccentricities. This is because such a position and/or office is considered almost sacred or divine. The candidates are exposed to various different bizarre conditions to test how well they can handle it. In some contexts, they are made to undertake an arduous task or accomplish a deathly feat. In some cultures, challengers for a position are made to engage in a duel, often to the death, to see who breaks whom. This they considered the true sign that the candidate is worthy.
The thinking back then was not so refined, but the underlying intention remains extremely valid. It was a kind of aristocracy, where the most gifted, talented or powerful get to lead, as they are the ones who are considered able to solve the problems facing the society. But nowadays, even with our eyes properly in their sockets, we have lost sight as a society of what should actually be important to us.
The election period in our dear University of Ibadan never fails to deliver with its own drama. From the departmental to the hall and faculty levels, even in the internal workings of various student organisations, there is enough material in our politics that would make for a thrilling sitcom. First, we have the ones we can all perceive: the campaign materials and tactics and the endless cajoling and persuasion tactics that feel like gaslighting. Then we have the not-so-subtle election tactics where the candidate relies on some form of alliance to get votes.
Here, the aspirants for various positions tap into a complex network of hall, faculty, religious, club, societal, and godfather sentiments to push their candidacy. They look for the influencers, the ones whose say can bring attention to them. They pander to the demands of these individuals. These individuals, the aficionados, then bear the burden of that aspirant's campaign and begin to literally direct him on who to go to, where to go and how to go about issues. The candidates subsequently become robots who lack a level of individual thinking themselves.
This was evidenced during the last SU press night, where most of the candidates came with empty manifestos and well rehearsed PR jargon. When asked to grade the current SU VP, one of the candidates for the post of VP graded her an eighth describing the current UISU vice president as a role model, someone she aims to emulate. This answer on its own should not be that bad; everyone deserves the right to whoever they want as mentors or role models, except for the fact that the individual she aims to emulate almost completely disappeared during her own administration. There are other instances in which there were no connections between the plans and the words coming out of the mouths of the candidates, instances in which their plans were out of touch with reality or even failed to cater for students in the school. These are the kinds of candidates these “structures” are pushing, and then we gather and wonder why things are not changing.
This article would have been titled 'Elections and Structure Building Experts', but this would not be fitting, as having a liking for a certain hobby does not make one an expert. Engaging in regular SUB pitch football does not translate into one developing the technical skills and dexterity of a professional footballer. In the same way, building “structures” and “alignments” by these individuals does not mean these structures deliver any positive returns on the long-term future of our student populace.
For all the “structure building” that has been done, is being done and will, unfortunately, at least for the near future continue to be done, the central idea has always been about position, to decide who gets which position and how Candidate X will edge out Candidate Y. Unfortunately, these architects of wonderfully cantankerous structures lack the initiative to build structures that will champion resistance to the various harsh policies meted out by the school management on students. It is rather all about which person gets to sit closest to the VC and take pictures with management staff. This situation gives off a mental imagery of stakeholders in this sham acting as kids, fighting over who gets to sit on Father Christmas's lap, who gets to be his bodyguard, who gets to carry his gifts and who gets left with nothing.
Ordinarily, candidates should be getting in on their own character, persuasiveness and the convincingness of their plans, not on how much who is helping or endorsing them. But since this key ingredient is missing, we now have candidates who are going for positions getting stumped on the basic union history and demographic questions. Asking for the bare minimum from candidates and aspirants now looks like a herculean task. But then, if a candidate cannot be bothered to know more about the people he wants to represent and the issues facing them, how then can we be convinced of his or her ability to bring fruitful changes? How can we plant stones and expect to reap sweet potatoes?
But then, what else can we expect when our elections have become less of a process where the candidates find an innovative or unionist approach to solving issues and more of one where the candidates look for how many electoral commissioners they can get into their own pockets. What else can we say of a committee that is not of the students in any way, a committee comprising individuals who themselves are chasing a recommendation letter at the end of their tenure? What kind of objectiveness can we expect of an electoral commissioner who, in a flagrant nonadherence to his duties, decides to team up in a stakeholders meeting to decide who holds which student union election?
Above all else, what is even more concerning is that this “structure building” and “alignment creation” should not be yielding any effect on anyone in any way. As students committed to intellectualism, we should be able to decide the people we want to see in office without being blinded by any forms of sentiment. And this brings us back to the issue of political apathy. During the last SU election, barely 8,751 students were accredited. This time, it is looking like the numbers will be lower. Real-time observation at the NFLT manifesto night showed that the turnout for the campaigns of the aspirants this time around was rather lukewarm. Even though the candidates came with their noise engines, the hall was barely full, an indication of the growing acceptance for the status quo. It would appear that apathy is winning.
Meanwhile, given the fact that the candidates campaigning have no solutions to the fundamental problems facing our union, they don’t campaign to the segment of the student populace that has more questions for them. These students consequently don’t bother posing questions to them or even engaging in the election process at all. Instead, election periods are now a period where those who are undecided soon find their minds made up for them at the last minute, by the forces of structure, of course.
At the end of the day, even after managing to get “our guy” into said office, what do we get? Nothing, except maybe for the bragging rights. “The president is from my hall”; “I will call the house sec for light”, and “I will ask the PRO to check for me”. There is no guarantee that the candidate will actually perform well. On occasion, he or she might respond to the calls of those who get him into the office. But other than that, the rest of the students are left in a limbo.
