The outcome of the just ended election of the National Union Of Ghana Students {NUGS} has left in its wake shocks and controversies that many are yet to come to terms with.
For some timenow the declaration by the various contestants of wining the various positions up for grabs, especially the position of the president, has become the Achille’s Heels of the whole process.
This newspaper is not so much concerned about the claim of victory by the contestants, but this perennial problem begs the question about the integrity and fairness of the Electoral Commission, which supervises the election, as well as the sportsmanship of the contestants.
It is now without doubt that, none of the students who put themselves up for the election are aiming to serve, with such a convoluted mindset, not even elections conducted by angels, would make them accept defeat.
Political parties, especially the New Patriotic Party {NPP} and the National Democratic Congress {NDC}, have made it their business now to be sponsoring students vying for positions in all the tertiary schools in the country.
We all know what happens when these two parties get involved in anything, they breed greed, chaos, violence and mistrust.
It is high time something drastic is done to minimize the involvement of political parties in elections in our higher institutions of learning where the leaders of tomorrow are train.
University authourities must put in every necessary measures to eliminate the open sponsorship of candidates by political parties.
In the just ended election, two of the contestants declared themselves winners, with members of NPP and NDC, congratulating them on social media, while counting is still ongoing.
The two front runners, Kwesi Atuahene and the eventual winner, Dennis Appiah Larbi-Ampofo, have all claim victory, a situation that has been playing out for some time now.
In our understanding of the nature of students’ politics that prevailed in the past, there was little acrimony between the victors and losers, today the situation is different because of the interest of political parties, which believe that by controlling elections in the universities, they stand a greater chance of winning national elections.
The losers need to come to terms with the fact that, they lost the election, as painful as it is, because the interest of Ghanaian students must always come first.
Adolf Hitler at least got one thing right when he said, “Anyone can deal with victory. Only the mighty can bear defeat.”
