Introduction and Exposition

There was once a couple who wanted to know what their child would become in future so they set up a table and put on it a bottle of wine, a bundle of money and a Bible. Then, from a distance, behind a slightly ajar door, they hid and watched in expectation which of those displayed items the child would pick.

According to popular belief, if a child picked the bottle of wine, it was to be believed that he would become a pleasure-oriented person. If he picked the money, it would be agreed that he would be a businessman.  If he picked the Bible, they would conclude there’s a possibility of the ministry.

So, well hidden from the little one’s view, mother and father awaited the verdict. In no time, the boy wobbled into the room and swaggered to the table. He took the money, put it in his pocket, picked the bible, tucked it under one arm and picked the bottle with the other hand.

And the father said, “Good grief, he’s going to be a politician.”

Exposition

There are many people who deem it inappropriate for serious subjects to consort with laughter. For such people, the anecdote above will be seen as an unforgiveable insult to politics and all those who are actively involved in it. That, however, is not the goal of this work.

So, to ensure, we are all on the same page, let’s try to define what I mean when I use the word politics in this context. After all, it was Voltaire who said that, "If you wish to converse with me, define your terms." Needless to say, that great mind knew the importance of definitions to discourse and deemed it the alpha and omega of logic. How many a debate would have been reduced into a paragraph if the disputants had tried to define their terms!

Back to the matter. When I use the word politics here, I do not refer to our institution’s grand polity such as the Governing Council and the like. I am as close to them as the Earth is to Pluto.  If you read this work for such help, you shall sue me for a compensation of your time.

By politics, I am neither referring to the coordination of social forces nor the adjustment of policy to improve the lot of studentry. That surely is an honorable thing worthy of pursuit. By Politics, I refer, of course, to that which the father saw and the point he made by implication when he said that his son would become a politician. I refer expressly to the greed, guile and gullibility that we see in students' attempts to win power.

I must say, however, that I am no ethical lord; neither do I count myself an authority on this matter. This essay is merely a journal that gestures towards political hypocrisy and its practitioners as I have known them. It is a personal perspective intended as a microcosm of a larger national problem which I think can offer some help to the novice in GIJ and Ghanaians at large.

In writing this piece, I hope beyond all other things that we shall come to appreciate fully the real and unsung heroes of students’ interest and escape the strategies of those who seek to deceive us with plastic smiles, staged revolutions, quasi-empowerment and bogus ceremony. 

Cheers.

Yours truly,

The Epic Prince.