When I say that politics is a work of heart, I mean to juxtapose it to a love relationship between newly weds; the aspirant being the groom and the electorates, the bride. Life becomes a discomfiting cold day in hell for an aspirant when other grooms strip them of their machismo by taking their lovers’(electorates) attention. Recently ,some SRC office hopefuls have been floundering in floods of jealousy and it is astonishing how far they go to protect their brides.
Ishmael is a great young man; vibrant and ambitious about making UG a better place. But apparently, the politics being played in UG (as some aspirants are making it seem) has no room for the peaceful or fair-minded. When Ishmael announced his intentions to run for office, he succesfully preached his gospel to a myriad of students and begun rallying a great following. It was only disappointing, when the EC disseminated the list of nominees without his name. It is necessary to figure out what happened in the interim.
Firstly, if you say that Ishmael is a coward and chickened out of the race, that will be an inaccurate diagnosis of the situation. My interview with him has shed more light on what happened. Ishmael just happened to be a victim of a classic case of political chess manouevering. He partnered with ANOTHER ASPIRANT long before the nominations were opened. They would merge campaigns, double their followers and proceed to the polls as president and running mate. Needless to say, THAT ASPIRANT had motives of his own all along.
Knowing well that Ishmael was a tough competition to beat, THAT ASPIRANT would make a chess move that cuts so deep, Ishmael wouldn’t recover until nominations closed. As a political strategy to eliminate competitors, THAT ASPIRANT would assure Ishmael of the certainty of their partnership until the nominations open; within which time, he will bail out, support another candidate and leave Ishmael clueless and vulnerable. With about a hundred endorsements to gather before nominations can be made valid, Ishmael will flounder in the shock until it was too late.
Student politics has become a bloody Punic war and the spoils? Our votes. Isn’t this the kind of pale agonizing endeavors that drive people to harbour suicidal tendencies? And yet these same emotionless robots we have as politicians claim to lead an anti-suicidal campaign…but it is all for show.
He is warm and just hoping to do the right thing. Ishmael can’t run for Student President, obviously not. But I dare say this, the guy is the Atta Mills of student politics; except he is living to fight another day.