The Election Series

Episode 4

  If you believe you have satisfied all the requirements and therefore duly qualified for any portfolio, feel free to pick a form when nominations are finally and officially opened. Leadership is a decision, no one has to make that decision for you. You have to decide to be a leader.

  According to the Constitution, these are what the Nomination entails and the processes you have go through to make sure your nomination is validated.

ARTICLE 25
NOMINATION

1) Candidates shall complete nomination forms supported by not less than thirty (30) signatures of students with at least five (5) from each year group; provided however that, each student signatory shall not support the nomination of more than one candidate for the same office; provided further that, should such a situation arise, the Electoral Commissioner shall allow the prospective candidates involved forty-eight (48) hours to secure fresh signatories or forfeit their candidature;

2) All the nomination forms shall be obtained from the Electoral Commission;

3) All nomination forms shall be completed accordingly in respect of the office of the Executive Committee to the SRC; to wit, President, Secretary, and treasurer;

4) Such completed forms shall be returned to the Electoral Commission within the period fixed by the Commission;

5) A person shall be considered a candidate only after he has been put up by the Electoral Commission;
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The Election Series

Episode 3

   It will interest you to know that not everyone qualifies to contest for an SRC/NUGS position.  Before you become eligible for a position, there are some basic requirements you have to fulfill. This particular episode is very important, especially to those who have dreams of vying for the various portfolios. Provision four is interesting.   Let's explore!!

ARTICLE 24

QUALIFICATION
1) A student shall not be qualified for election to any Executive Office if:

a. He has not been a member of the SRC of this University for at least one academic year.

b. He trails in more than 1 course and/or has Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) of less than 2.5;

c. He is not qualified to contest elections under his Hall's Constitution

d. He is an Executive Officer of SRC/NUGS, or speaker/Deputy Speaker/Clerk of the General Assembly, or Chairperson/Deputy Chairperson of a Committee, Board or Commission of the SRC or holds a political party office.

e. He has been adjudged or otherwise declared to have conducted himself in contravention of the University and SRC regulations;

f. He has been found by any committee of enquiry to be incompetent to hold any office or is a person of enquiry has found that while holding any office, he has misappropriated funds or acquired assets unlawfully or defrauded the SRC or any society, club, or willfully acted in a manner prejudicial to the interest of students and the findings have not been set aside:

g. He has once been removed from any student office in this University;

h. He score below 40%of the total average marks allotted at the vetting by the Vetting Committee.

i. Without prejudice to any provision of this constitution, a student shall qualify to stand and contest election to any Executive Office provided he is not a final year student; a final year student is defined to include all who receive a degree or diploma or certificate;

j. Notwithstanding clause 1 (a) of this article, a student pursuing a post graduate course in this University shall qualify to stand and contest elections provided such a student pursued his undergraduate programme in this University and within three (3) after graduation.

k. Notwithstanding clause 1(b) of this article, a newly established campus shall have acting executives.

2) All candidates for elections shall duly complete nomination forms in accordance with the provisions of this constitution.

3) A student shall be qualified for the position of SRC president only if he designates a running mate.

4) All candidates for election to any Executive position shall have their fair knowledge of the SRC Constitution.
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The Election Series

Episode 2

  Below are the provisions governing the Conduct of all SRC/NUGS elections per the Constitution. These rules are quite comprehensive and self explanatory. Let's Explore!!

ARTICLE 23

CONDUCT OF ELECTIONS

1) (a) SRC/NUGS Elections shall take place within the first-half of the second trimester.

b) Every member of the SRC of this University shall be entitled to a single vote.

c) The Electoral Register shall be the list of registered students of the University, released by the Registrar of the University.

d) Campaign shall end at midnight on the eve of the election.
e) Voting shall commence at 7:00AM and close at 5:00PM.

2) Notwithstanding clause 1 (e) of this article, all eligible voters in the queue at 5:00PM shall be allowed to cast their votes.

3)Any group of students who by University regulations or schedule will be absent on the day and period of elections shall by special arrangement be allowed to vote earlier by the Electoral Commission.

4) (a). A simple majority shall be required to win SRC/NUGS elections.

b) Notwithstanding the generality of the clause 4 (a) of this article, no candidate shall be deemed elected as SRC/NUGS president, unless at such elections, the number of the total votes in his favour is more than fifty percent (50%) of the total valid votes cast at the election.

c) Where at the election for SRC/NUGS president no candidate makes the score as per clause 4 (b) of this article, there shall be a runoff election between the first two candidates with the highest number of votes within seven (7) days after the declaration of the election results.

d) Candidates who stand unopposed shall require more than fifty percent (50%) of the valid votes cast to win the office thereof.

The Election Series

Episode 1

... Talks about the Electoral Commission. The body mandated to conduct elections on campus. Its composition and who qualifies to be a member of the Commission as stipulated by the SRC constitution.

Article 21 talks about the Composition and Functions of the Electoral Commission and Article 22 talks about how independent the operations of The Electoral Commission should be.

Let's explore and learn. Your comments, questions and suggestions are welcomed!!

ELECTORAL COMMISSION

ARTICLE 21

MEMBERSHIP AND FUNCTIONS
a) There shall be an Electoral Commission of the the SRC which shall consist of;
i) Electoral Commissioner
ii) Two Deputies;
iii) One Representative from each year group

b) A person shall not be qualified to be a Chairperson or Deputy Chairperson of the Commission unless he is qualified to be elected or appointed as a member of the Executive Committee.

c) The commission shall be responsible for conducting all SRC sponsored elections as well as the election of representatives of various year groups to the General Assembly of the SRC in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution and/or any other resolution of the General Assembly.

d) Without prejudice to article 26 of this constitution,  the Commission shall make rules and/or regulations for the exercise and execution of its functions; to wit, conduct of the elections.

e)  The Commissioner shall exercise supervisory jurisdiction over the conduct of all SRC elections.
f) The out-going Electoral Commissioner shall hand over to the Electoral Commissioner designate within seven (7) days after his appointment.

ARTICLE 22
INDEPENDENCE
Except as provided in this Constitution, in the performance of its functions, the Electoral Commissioner shall not be subject to the direction or control of any other person or authority.

The Election Series

   As we journey through this trimester, the second most important happening will be the SRC/NUGS elections and perhaps the Departmental Elections. Obviously, academics is always  the number one priority. To this end, it is of utmost importance we know the nuts and bolts of this particular elections. More to the point, a friend queried some time ago whether the Electoral Commission had the power to sanction a certain aspirant for premature/early campaign.  I said answered  in the affirmative and explained certain things to her as contained in the SRC constitution. It dawned on me that not all students have access to the SRC constitution.  In fact, many students do not even know that we have a document called THE SRC CONSTITUTION on campus. It is quite unfortunate and a pity that students do not have access to the very document that is being used to govern them. Fortunately, I'm part of the lucky few who have access to the SRC constitution.

   The Election Series is going to be an avenue where excerpts from the Constitution (those sections of the Constitution that talks about the elections) will be shared and probably discussed. The body mandated to conduct elections on campus always been the Electoral Commission but as to how the process is going to be is unknown to many students. The Election Series is meant to bridge this gap. We shall discuss the Electoral Commission, who qualifies to contest, the voting process and all that concerns this election.

    Perhaps if students know the nitty-gritties of the election, they would show more concern. I see an era where students will not wait for aspirants to provide transport for them to go and vote, an era where students will not sell their votes  and an era where the interest in elections will be so intense that there will be no need for door to door campaigns. My target audience are those who do not have access to the SRC constitution and those who find it difficult to read things printed on paper (Nnabi, there are people like ooo. Lol)

    Hope to get the participation of all students. The Election Series will be published on some specific dates which will be communicated soon. I have senior members who will provide clarifications to any questions you might have.
All hands on deck!!
Thank you!!!
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Campaign against apathy!!

My first F

  My biggest fear as a student is an F or a trail. In fact, that is my prayers on Fridays - that the Almighty should build a very huge wall between me and F. I don't just want to be associated in any way with an F. Just thinking about it Catapults me into a state of frustration and hypoglycemia. Truth be told, there's a difference between fantasy and reality, a difference between what we want and what we will get and to some extent, an uncertainty as to whether our prayers are actually being answered. My first F as a student in the University came to me as a gargantuan shock. Sometimes students deserve an F but others are just "Fd" (past tense of F) by the system - I don't know where I belonged. Nnabi, all I can say is that my heart left me. Words can't actually be used to express this particular feeling but let me try. It was devastating, I had just finished preparing a very delicious jollof rice but immediately lost my appetite after taking a look at my results. The distance between me and a smile was like from Ghana to China. I couldn't even feign it. The world is wicked ooo. Just a certain letter attached to a certain index number under a certain course code can drive a person into a state of discombobulation and depression. I suddenly became a question bank. Questions started running through my mind like Usain Bolt. How? Kaman how? How did I succeed in failing? What does it mean to trail a course? How come I trailed? It is that I didn't learn? Where the questions so difficult? Or did the lecturer intentionally trail me? But wait, how come some people passed ? A network of questions running through my mind.  The most depressing part of this is that some people had 'A's. Does this mean I'm a dunderhead? After attending all the lectures, my F was still assured. Hmmm!! Trailing in my first official exam was not a joke.

  With all these happening in my head, I knew I had to move on. I knew I had to find a better response to this devastating stimulus I had just been subjected to. I had to find something to hold on to. I had flashbacks of how I studied and prepared for that particular paper. It was almost as if I left no stone unturned but still things didn't turn out well. I began to calm down. I did my best and besides there was nothing I could do at that particular moment to change the results. I had interactions with my senior colleagues. In an attempt to calm me down, they told stories of  their Fs. Apparently, it is normal to trail but nonetheless it was my first F. I subjected myself to a serious meditation, trying to find inspiration and motivation. I remembered His Royal Intelligence, Albert Einstein once failed a certain mathematics paper. Thomas Edison failed on several attempts but finally succeeded in inventing the light bulb. Then I realized that the only way we can defeat failure is to see it as an integral part of success. So that any time we face any kind of failure, we know that success is an extra effort away. There's always a second chance. I just had to take advantage of the re-sit. My first F became my fuel, it became the driving force behind my persistent determination to succeed. Sometimes we just have to make comedy out of our tragedies. Failure is not final. Is a marathon not a sprint finish hard!!! 

The biggest problem in UDS

   What is the biggest problem in UDS? Have you ever asked yourself this question? Yes! I have and have also asked so many people this same question. Of course, I have gotten so many different views encompassing all aspects of student life on campus. Unfortunately, my answer to this question is quite different from all the views I have sampled. On a class whatsapp platform of about a hundred and twenty students, I asked this same question and only three students gave a response--this is indicative of the biggest problem in UDS. The SRC organizes a summit on Leadership and out of the thousands of students on campus, only a handful attends--this is indicative of the biggest problem in UDS. If you were asked  represent problems students face on a pie chart, which problem would take the largest portion?

Indeed, students on campus faces a myriad of problems. Problems that has to  do with academics, sanitation, security, how we are governed and so on. But I will state emphatically that, the biggest problem in UDS is not the fact we do not have adequate lecture rooms, it is not the fact the fans in our lecture rooms are not working, it not the fact that the air conditioners in our lectures rooms have become white elephants, it is not the fact that our security men do not have name tags, it is not the fact that a security man can shout on you and will forget your index number,  it is not the fact that some lecturers are just intentionally wicked, it is not the fact medlab students have to carry stools up and down when ever they go for lectures at the lab and it is not the fact the system is made to trail some students for no reasonable reason. So what then is the fact? .......The fact,  the biggest problem in UDS is that we are not willing as students to do anything about all these problems. Our lackadaisical attitudes, our lack of concern and our high sense of "I don't careism" towards issues of importance is our biggest problem. We are not willing to do anything about the fact that a person can suffer ear defect/impairment just by attending lectures at lecture room1 because of the bad state of the P. A systems. We don't care about the fact that we are unable to enjoy a steady Internet connectivity due to an unending fluctuations in our WiFi system and the fact that most of the Internet cable ports (for the sake of Lack of a   better term) are in dysfunction. We fold our arms and complain to ourselves. The only thing we do is to grumble amongst ourselves, no one is ready to speak out. What a pity!!

One might ask -what has the SRC (in this context, when I say SRC, I mean the Executives) done in this regard? The truth is that, the SRC Executives are the beneficiaries of the biggest problem in UDS. They have capitalized and are successfully thriving on this problem. How many students care about the amount of money spent on SRC week celebrations? And if no one cares, who benefits? So there seems to be no reason why SRC will try to solve this problem. It will be like creating a hole in their own pockets . In a nutshell, the biggest problem in UDS is APATHY : the lack of interest and concern in important matters especially in relation to how we are governed and treated as students.

The solution to this problem is not farfetched. The solution is a collective responsibility of the whole student body. An active campaign against apathy. Developing interest in other important matters apart from academics. It is a known fact that the first priority of every student is to excel academically but mind you, GPA has its limitations. We can develop interest and participate in issues that has to do with how we are governed without neglecting our academics - it is possible. The solution lies in our hands. Let's say no to apathy. Let's hold our leaders accountable. It is our duty.
I hope you are nodding in agreement?
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Dead Dreams

Born into an unfair world
Hello!!! World
Man cries to the new world
Full of hope, full of ideas
Full of plans, he walks the earth with optimism
He dreams of a better job
He dreams of a mansion,
And his pension
He dreams of a beautiful wife
And a better world

But all of a sudden
Time is running out to
Hope becomes hopeless
Faith becomes fake
Dreams and plans become vague
What happened? How did he get here?
Please hear me
Bad choices and bad company
Inaction and complacency
Procrastination has really stolen the time
Confusion and desperation sets in
His dream of a better world is now shuttered
He becomes grumpy, he becomes sad

What else can he do?
He gangs up with his fellas
They sit under shady trees
Their only priority becomes winning that game of oware
A cedi for a calabash of pito becomes the budget for the day
He finds solace in abusing cola nuts
Teeth becomes tainted

Hey hey hey!!
While the sun shines make hay!
Under shady trees, they sit
Having a lonely drink
In memory of their hopes and dreams
That are now dead and buried
Now I know, dreams have a lifespan
They do not span a life time.
Live your dreams,
dreams have a life span.

Let's move on

Yes, there are certain lines in H. E Nana Addo's inaugural speech that has been plagiarised. Writers of the speech have come out to offer the nation an apology, stating clearly that it was an oversight. The speech has not even been submitted for any academic purpose. These vilifications, incessant brouhaha and hullabaloos are expected. In fact, it will incompetent on the part of the opposition not to aggrandize and blow this issue out of proportion. But as well meaning Ghanaians let's look beyond this issue of plagiarism and concentrate on the substance of the message his H E Nana Addo wanted to send. Mind you, as is stands now, Ghana has a high illiteracy rate. What that means is that a significant number of Ghanaians do not even understand what plagiarism means. Plagiarism has no meaning to the old lady at "Babatikuma" (a remote village) who sells dawadawa, the market women and the peasant farmers. All what these people are concerned with is bread and butter. OK now, the president gave a plagiarised speech, so that it mean that at the end of the month salaries will not be paid? Roads will not be constructed ? The allowance will not be restored? Development will come to a standstill? Ahbaaa!! Enough.
Let's move on.
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The Hard Truth

Welcome to UDS. It is now clear that whether the EC likes it or not the campaign has began. It is almost time for our elections and as usual the word "writer"  has become synonymous with "aspirant". Wow, I  never knew we had such great writers on campus. Who I'm I kidding? For the sake of lack of a better term, let's call them the "copy and paste"  writers. So interesting, some are telling stories, some have become motivational writers and others have become news agencies. Lol.

This is one utterly amazing development I enjoy most anytime we are approaching SRC elections. So much useful information, so many inspiring messages circulating our whatsapp platforms.  I must admit and those who taken time to read these messages will  also attest to the fact that these messages are actually very useful and there is so much to learn from them. But why now? The obvious answer to this question is :  elections are coming up, the campaign has started, students want to make their names popular. Really? So you do this by ascribing your names to write-ups that do not belong to you? That is  not even my problem. 

Are these messages only useful to students when we are approaching elections? —this is my problem. I will state emphatically without fear or any shred of trepidation that this is HYPOCRISY of the highest pinnacle. You do not care whether the information you provide benefits the students, as long as your name is is written at top or bottom of the write-up, you are okay. What kind of hypocrisy is that? What kind of pretentious behavior is this? Anyone at of whatever reason(s) decides to contest for a position suddenly becomes a writer. kaman how? They begin to terrorize us with messages. It beats my imagination.  For your information, no matter how viral your messages have gone on whatsapp, no matter the number of thumbs-up or likes you get on your "copy and paste" posts, don't be deceived. We shall not endorse any kind mediocrity. We have learnt from history, empty barrels makes the most noise especially in UDS_TLC. Enough is enough. Enough of this brouhaha!!
I HAVE MADE MY CASE!!

I'm back

"I'm back"

They hail the wrongs
Even sing songs
To praise the rots
I can't fight
Coz I'm not strong
So I sent my pen to the gym
It is now strong

Give me pen, Give me paper
No more dulling, no more later
Words getting thicker
Brace yourselves
I'm about to rain on them
I don't have to be judgmental
But can't I be instrumental?
I was on a truce
Now I'm back
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A new Dawn

A new dawn
Has dawn on us
I woke up to the dawn
Of a new dawn
The beginning of an era
That is a beacon of inspiration

Change has come
May it increase our income
We sit and wait
To see those promises
Turned into prosperity
So we can own more properties
Expectations are so high
Now we can relax
And take some sobolo
With chicken thighs
I hope they don't forget our rights

With the memories
Of the histories of frustrations
And of the painful stories
Behind us
We Forge a new image
Image of smiles and image of hope
Image of jobs and image of development
Image of a better health care delivery system
We Forge a more United nation

With the pains of the past behind us
We forgive
And welcome the rebirth of a nation
A nation of possibilities
A nation full of inspiration
And Full of opportunities
Atleast, I pray so

They inspired
And got hired
The others conspired
And got fired
With the voice of the thumb
The people spoke
Onaapo!!!
Change has come
God bless our home land Ghana.
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7/01/17

When I write

When I write
They begin to wonder
Please don't bother
I need you to ponder
Ideas running through my mind
My pen begins to quiver
Like a river
Words begins to flow
Floyd Mayweather
It sometimes gives a blow
DKB, sometimes it's like a comedy
Like sexual intercourse
Writing gives me ecstasy
I'm I being excessive
Is it better being recessive
I have no choice
Issues keeps writing
OK ok ok sorry
Please don't worry
I don't need to rhyme
I just want to write
Is it a crime
Where's my pen cover
I'm done.
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23/12/16

My pen

"my pen"

My pen has a PhD
Always writing thesis
And some teases
To tease society
And to speak the reality
Realities my mouth can't speak
My pen is not shy but respectful
Now you know my intention
So give me some attention
I'm about to cause some tension

I have a factory of rhymes
Full of punchlines
My words are bold, no need to underline
So sophisticated, I use nets
No more fishing lines
No time for nonsense
Go check my time line
Give me pen, give me paper
And I will beat the deadline
like Usain Bolt, meet at the finish line

My Dearest

My dearest
Forget the rest
And take a rest
My love for you is the best
Let's go to the west
On a quest
To Budapest
Your love for me will surely manifest

You are my pride
So be my bride
Be by my side
Besides
I will never backslide

I've seen my father
Let's go see your mother
C'mon don't be shy
I will buy you the sky
Do you prefer the moon?
Then I will take a loan
From Banki Moon

OK stop
Put on that top
Let's go to the shop
I want to buy you a golden ring
Champagne will be our drink
Our wedding will be in the Bahamas
Our chefs will be the Obamas
Please be my baby mama