Govt manipulates SRC elections

Investigations into Students Representative Council (SRC) elections has revealed grand manipulative scheme by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to control the SRC leadership of public tertiary institutions in the country, with a deputy Minister of Information, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, as the chief prosecutor.

A team from the ruling party, led by Okudzeto-Ablakwa, last week travelled to the various public tertiary institutions where Students Representative Council (SRC) election were being held in an attempt to cajole students to vote for candidate members of the Tertiary Institution Network (TEIN), the tertiary education wing of the NDC, who are contesting in the election.

The team, Today gathered, started their propagandist expedition from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) where the winner of the SRC election, one Yaw Oduro Amoah, a known NPP activist, had sleepless nights waiting for the Electoral Commission (EC) to announce his victory.

It took weeks before the EC came out to announce the outcome of that election.

It was, though, not without series of preceding manipulating bouts of money sharing by the government team; yet in the end the fine and unbiased judgment of the EC prevailed.
The deputy information minister, who was actively involved in student politics during his days in University of Ghana, Legon, and his team had their plan foiled by some irate students of KNUST who threatened to deal with him whenever they saw him on campus after he had managed to sneak in and allegedly “bought some of the students with money.”

“We sighted them on campus and we believe Ablakwa and his team bought some of the students with money,” a level 300 student who pleaded for anonymity told Today.

The immediate past SRC President of KNUST, S. K. Oppong Jnr., in an interview with Today, emphatically stated that the NDC government (from their current ‘money sharing’ operations in KNUST, UDS and University of Ghana campuses) have manifested clearly its interest in having their party loyalists hold students’ leadership positions to help them gag all students against their apparently ineffective, dormant and non-workable education policies which bring nothing but reduction in government subventions for tertiary institutions.

After their abortive trip to KNUST, the Okudzeto-led group went to the Kumasi campus of the University of Development Studies (UDS), and then proceeded to the University of Ghana, Legon, and later reports indicated that the team made a whistle stop at the campus of the University of Cape Coast (UCC) where SRC election were held last weekend.

The paper gathered that the team went to UCC campus on Monday, 5th April, 2010 with the primary objective of supporting their party candidate, Mahmud Sherif Khalid Jnr., a.k.a Comrade, who is also the son of Upper West Regional Minister, Mahmud Khalid.

At UCC the Okudzeto group vowed to help candidate, Mahmud Sherif Khalid Jnr to win the presidency at all cost.

“At all cost Khalid Jnr., should be the UCC SRC president after the election,” a member of the Okudzeto led group was reportedly to have told a section of UCC students.

The team knew what goes into student politics and was determined even if it meant doling out monies to win votes for their preferred candidate.

The regional minister’s son, Today discovered, was also backed by the Central Regional Youth caucus of the NDC to ensure that he defeated his closest rival, Nicholas Normeshie, a.k.a, Restoration, who was believed to be an NPP sympathiser.

It was believed that a lot of monies exchanged hands between Okudzeto’s team and some NDC party executives, and some students’ groups to get baby Khalid to win the election. As at press time yesterday, Today was yet to get the outcome of the UCC election.

Even though the intention of the NDC team was to induce students with money to woo votes for their candidates, Today established from its hounding to the campuses that the group’s move to have NDC candidates elected as SRC presidents failed woefully, since none of their candidates won the SRC presidency.

“After they failed in their plot to manoeuvre their way in KNUST campus, Okudzeto and his people have came here to try to manipulate ours too”, a student of UCC told the paper on phone.

Efforts to reach Okudzeto Ablakwa for his reaction proved abortive as our calls went unanswered. Neither did he reply a text message the paper sent to him via our news editor’s number on the above subject matter.