It’s that time of the year when shows of strength—and sometimes fists—take centre stage in the race for power. The turning of the academic calendar at Obafemi Awolowo University has once again ushered in the familiar season of elections—a period marked by the usual chorus of “capacity leader is here to lead,” crowding students’ DMs and accompanied by posters of their saintly faces, wearing plastic green smiles, plastered across the university community.
For the uninitiated freshmen and women, this era may appear bizarre and faint. Meanwhile, sophomore and penultimate students are more actively engaged—vibrant and assertive—as some pick up candidature forms and dive headlong into campus politicking. At the forefront, finalists—seasoned with years of political engagement, some of them taking the role of godfather—by determining who gets into power. With calculated moves, they leverage their experience to throw weight behind preferred candidates, often seeing this as a strategic act of service to assert their influence before bidding farewell to the university. Yet, in some rare but telling cases, freshers defy the expected norm, proving politically savvy enough to shake tables more actively than those they met on the scene. Well, if you may say, it’s business as usual on the Ogbafemi campus.
Even before the Student Representative Council (SRC) has announced or inaugurated an electoral committee, campus politicians are already working around the clock—strategizing, lobbying, and aligning themselves with godfathers to validate their candidacy. These tactics are typical of the manoeuvring schemes used by mainstream Nigerian politicians in getting to power. Suddenly, they bestowed love, empathy, and affection on students—an act of benevolence that is off the wall—in a bid to woo them to their camp. Some aspirants go as far as paying off students’ faculty and departmental dues—just to ensure they’re eligible to vote when the decisive moment arrives. You can call this a calculated strategy: using voters as mere stepping stones to achieve their ambitions. Isn’t this reminiscent of the “half bag of lies” and “a yard of wax” that Nigerian politicians offer to the electorate year in and out?
In Ogbafemi, power struggles often follow the same script— the tricky business, as it is called, often leads to poor choices of leadership. Year after year, it’s the same cycle of showmanship and strategy to get to power. However, despite the repeated failures, hope still springs eternal in the heart of Great Ife students, having the premonition that one day their leaders will truly prompt the school management to do well by them and also stand up for them when the moment demands it. Moreover, instead of taking time to ask the right questions or understand who they’re voting for, many rush to the polls blindly all in the name of whatever prompted them—only to regret it later when those entrusted with their votes turn out to be cocky and arrogant.
They are out again promising to lead students into Marx’s utopian dream, where equality in voice and status supposedly reigns. Some have become nocturnal pilgrims, moving silently from Adekunle Fajuyi (FAJ) Hall to Awolowo, Mozambique, and every other hall on campus, knocking discreetly under the cover of darkness, with godfathers lurking close by to echo their ambitions. They are deep in calculation—measuring the strength and weakness of rivals, drawing battle lines, and plotting how best to manipulate the numbers in their favour. Much like their fathers—the Nigerian politicians—they understand the significance of timing. They are aware that even a subtle misstep, like a wink, could jeopardise their ambitions. Hence, this is the season of appearances, of deception and gamesmanship to win the quest for them.
They know the game well. Familiar with the terrain, student politicians have become skilled architects of persuasion, crafting plots so artfully that even the most discerning electorate often falls for the bait. Their strategies are deliberate, their moves calculated, all aimed at winning hearts and eking out votes from unsuspecting students.
This dynamic mirrors George Orwell’s Animal Farm, where power is secured and maintained not through sincerity but through manipulation, propaganda, and rhetoric. The pigs, at first, rally the animals with promises of equality and collective freedom. But as time unfolds, they distort these ideals through catchy slogans, historical revisionism, and doublespeak. “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others” becomes the final mask behind which oppression hides.
Similarly, today’s student politicians, much like their forebears, have mastered the art of emotional manipulation. They twist narratives, exploit sentiment, and peddle half-truths—not to uplift, but to dominate. Their campaigns are often less about service and more about spectacle: a bag of tricks filled with sweets and shiny coins—symbols of short-term delight meant to distract from long-term consequences.
The Yoruba proverb captures it well: “Ẹni tó bá fẹ́ gbà ọmọ lọ́kàn, kó jẹ́ kó rí ohun tí ń mú inú rẹ dùn” — “He who wants to win a child’s heart must give what delights it.” In other words, to put it in Nigerian parlance, to catch the monkey, you must first act like one.
What we see on our campuses today is a direct reflection of the tricky game played by mainstream politicians to get to power, a recycled performance where power is pursued not through character, but cunning; not with principles, but with ploys. Campus politics is no longer a contest spurred by empathy, intellect, or vision any longer, but about how lavishly you spend. Prudence, especially in financial matters, is treated as weakness. In this game, restraint is a losing strategy; extravagance is the ticket to relevance.
You simply can’t clench your fists and expect to earn loyalty. If you’re not opening your wallet, you’re shutting down your chances. Try playing frugal, and you’ll earn not admiration but scoffs and sneers—they’ll even suck teeth at you for it.
This is why many aspiring student leaders go as far as taking out loans—to print oversized banners, throw food-filled rallies, sponsor handouts, or even help with fellow students’ tuition. They pour in their last kobo, not out of sheer benevolence, but because they understand the transactional culture of the political climate. Once the campaign dust settles, the luxuries and access that come with the office are often deemed worth every borrowed naira.
In a system where optics trump integrity and indulgence overshadows ideas, politics becomes less about service and more about spectacle. And sadly, the price of influence is paid not with vision, but with vanity.
The political landscape has become a marketplace of exchange, where influence is traded, not earned; where merit is overshadowed by shallow appeal. Even the most intellectually barren and character-deficient individuals now parade as frontrunners, buoyed not by vision or capacity, but by wealth, charisma, and social popularity.
Electoral choices, rather than being rooted in critical evaluation of competence and integrity, are increasingly swayed by superficial allure. It’s no longer about who can drive reform or pioneer genuine growth and development. Instead, it’s about who looks good, sounds appealing, or commands the loudest applause. Sensuality and spectacle have overtaken credibility and substance.
Disturbingly, many voters—trapped in delusion and unwilling to embrace reason—blatantly confess their irrational choices: “I’m voting for her because she looks charming; I don’t care if she has nothing to offer.” Such sentiments, though absurd, have become common currency in political discourse, revealing just how far the culture of meaningful representation has eroded.
In a terrain where aesthetics replace intellect and popularity eclipses potential, the future of leadership becomes bleak—unless the electorate reawakens to its role in demanding more than surface appeal.
The political landscape is deeply entrenched in a culture of transactional exchange, where merit takes a backseat, even when the wealthiest candidate lacks the character, intellect, or wisdom necessary to drive meaningful reform and development. Voter sentiment is rarely guided by competence or vision; instead, it is swayed by affluence, physical appeal, and popularity—values that elevate superficial charm above integrity and potential. Alarmingly, many voters, caught in a web of illusion and apathy, make declarations such as: “I’m voting for her because she looks charming; I don’t care if she has nothing to offer,” among other irrational justifications that betray a troubling neglect of substance.
Just like in Ola Rotimi’s “Our Husband has Gone Mad Again,” politics on OAU campus na war, war against opponents! You must use all the power at your disposal—gun, bullet, juju, money, women, and anything— to achieve your aim. That is the definition of the kind of politics that thrives on OAU campus. Just as Lejoka-Brown sees political office not as service to humanity but as warfare where deceit and bribery are acceptable weapons, student politicians in like manner are girding up their loins with amulets, guns, and all sorts of weapons to battle their way through. Some of them have secured loans either from banks or their Godfathers to intensify their ambitions.
Much like their counterparts in the broader Nigerian political landscape, student politicians have mastered the art of influence and persuasion. They know what works. They understand the tactics that draw support, and in these moments of campaign fervour, they emerge across campus clad in garments of feigned sainthood—robes flowing, mitres metaphorically grazing the heavens. With serene smiles and outstretched hands, they pose like Popes dispensing silent blessings, projecting an image of calm and piety.
But behind this theatrics of sanctity lie the murky truths—hidden ambitions, backdoor alliances, and a ravenous thirst for power, all concealed beneath layers of rehearsed humility and performative charm. These are not mere students seeking to serve; many are actors in a well-scripted drama, driven by personal interest and political survival.
At this point, one must pause and ask: In the face of this “Jagba politics”—a politics of force, manipulation, and deception—can the true spirit of Great Ife’s alutanism be revived? Can we once again witness a union leadership with the courage and conviction of the likes of Olanrewaju Adeleke, whose legacy was defined by a bold defiance against the unjust and authoritarian directives of university management?
His resistance, however, was not without consequence. It was in that era that the tragic saga of the #OAU5 unfolded—the brutal murder of George Iwilade (Afrika), then General Secretary; Yemi Ajiteru; Eviano Ekemu, a 400-Level Medical student; Efe Ekede, a 200-Level Psychology student; and Tunde Oke, a 100-Level Philosophy student. To contest for political office on campus during those times was to accept the ultimate risk. It was a call to selfless service—an embodiment of welfarism and advocacy at the cost of comfort, even life.
That era was defined by sincerity and sacrifice. Politics was not a career ladder but a battlefield for the students’ welfare. The question now remains: Can today’s aspirants look beyond the glitz and drama to reignite the flames of true representation and fearless activism?
Similarly, the student community watches, with weary concern, as the dance between the SRC and the SUEC plays on—a choreography of convenience where hands are rubbed not in service to the people, but in a silent pact of mutual indulgence. What was meant to be a system of checks and balances now resembles a staged duet, and observers, ever discerning, grow more critical with each performance, questioning whether this alliance serves the interest of the people or merely to preserve power. Rather than holding politicians accountable and summoning them for questioning over grey matters, instead, we have Assemblies that are mere rubber-stamp factories.
One can affirm boldly that a good number of Great Ife students do not know who’s representing their department, faculty, and halls of residence in the SRC. Hardly do Representatives send notice of their sitting, and even if they did, a majority of Great Ife students are either indifferent to it or uninterested in attending sittings. They are apathetic to the kind of decisions made, how they approve money to the executives, how lenient or rigid they are to the overindulgence of the executives, the subject matters of their discourse, the amount they budget for food at every sitting, among others.
In some cases, constituents are more aware of a sitting going on within the Hall than some so-called Representatives, leading to a resounding emptiness on the floor of the House. In fact, in most sittings, most Representatives do not understand the content of the discussion, talkenshrined in the constitution rather than making meaning out of it. Some of them, on the floor of the house, make obvious clangers and cannot cogently convey their thoughts meaningfully. Well, who are we to blame for this? The blame is still much premised on the fact that “electorates don’t know them well before pooling their votes for them”.
At most sittings, aside from the criminal lateness of members, it is rare to see some members raise a motion or suggest any meaningful or valid positions. They are either nodding off or chattering as if they were in a marketplace. The only time some stay awake is when food is mentioned—that is, when they become mentally alert and eager to contribute.
The flawed nature of the SRC is a symptom of a widespread malaise in the legislature. At the faculty, department, and halls of residence levels, the legislature has become dormant and neglectful of its duties. Motions with little or no relevance or impact are approved, while important issues that demand attention are neglected.
Instead, budgets for furnishing executives’ offices are approved; a majority of representatives say “yea” to party proposals running into millions, yet they turn a blind eye to those that are salient. One might wonder if the executives have ever submitted a budget addressing the renovation of facilities and the poor condition of classrooms, and if the legislature has ever approved such a budget.
Similarly, one might ask if the SUEC has recently shown concern about the terrible state of toilets within the Students’ Union building or the unwholesome condition of the SUB TV Room, and whether, in their recent proposal, renovation of the aforementioned is listed in their proposed budget. Well, the Alumni body always comes to the rescue—because I don’t think it’s worth the stress.
By saying this, I do not intend to generalise or imply that there are no active or dedicated members within the Representatives Council, whether at the faculty, department, or hall level, who are actively committed to excellence and strive to keep the student body informed about their activities. I recognise and appreciate the efforts they make, maybe modestly.
I understand that these responsibilities may not be the most glamorous or convenient, especially compared to executive positions that often come with awards of service at the end of each session. Nonetheless, the honour and prestige of serving as an Honourable in such a role should be motivation enough. That, indeed, should be the goal.
I need to reiterate again that to have a functioning union, it will be as a result of voting in the right set of people who have the know-how of championing a good course.