Should A Serious Student Participate In Student Union Politics? | a satire

A SERIOUS STUDENT MUST NOT COMBINE ACADEMICS WITH OTHER ACTIVITIES (using STUDENT UNION POLITICS as a case study)

Over time, there has been serious speculation in the student community regarding the outcomes of participating in student politics, as well as other extra-curricular activities, alongside your academic work. Welcome, dear readers; you will find the answers you seek here.

First and foremost, the greatest mistake any very serious and devoted “academic” student can make is joining Student Union politics (or any other extra-curricular activities) on campus. You must stick to your books, I repeat, you must stick to your books at all times because having A’s is all that guarantees success in life. God forbid you to join that band of thoughtless students in their imaginary bid to “play politics”. Even if you are interested in leadership and all that comes with serving people from an elected office, do not, I repeat, do not join them. They have a lot of baggage that does not fit into your extreme goals of graduating at the top of your class, if possible, the best graduating student in the school. To support your ministry, let me quickly outline these things:

1. They are all on probation.
   Let me quickly bring you in on one of the top genetic features of Student Union Politicians (SUPs). These sets of students are very dull. They are always the students that paint our result sheets with F’s, and D’s. They are all below 0.5. God forbid you to become part of such a group. But lest we forget, I and you know very well that you need at least a CGPA of 3.0 to contest for offices in the student union, but since these students are dull, they pray and fast, and spiritually raise their CGPA to the required minimum. After the elections, God lowers their CGPA again because probation is endemic amongst them. I repeat, don’t be part of such people.

Remember, failure is contagious; don’t join them in SUP, as well as other extra-curricular activities.

1. They’re constantly meeting.
   The SUPS are always a very busy group of students. They spend the entirety of the 4 months embedded in a semester attending meetings. How they find time to come and write exams takes the divine mercies of God. As a very serious academic student, you should not be seen in a gathering that does not discuss definitions, philosophical analysis, epistemology, term papers, fallacies, etc. It is even believed that some of these meetings happen late at night.

As much as other things can be done at late hours, student union politics shouldn’t be one of them. As far as you are concerned, it should be an occultic meeting. Don’t be involved.
3. They are all drunkards.
SUPs are always drenched or saturated with alcoholic beverages. You can’t win elections or serve your constituents if you don’t have a Ph.D. in being drunk.Whenever these student leaders interact with the school management, they go there drunk to assist their political doggedness. Note that for you to be academically sound, you must not be around such people.

1. They are students without a purpose in life.
   As far as you are concerned, all SUPs do not have a purpose in life. Like I stated earlier, everything about student unionism exists only in the figment of their imagination. After school, they will all become political thugs and “touts” or “agberos” on the streets.

Honestly, no SUP has ever become anything useful in life since God said “Let there be light” in Genesis. You don’t want to have such a future. Your future is centered on having A’s, so do not get involved in other activities, particularly SU politics.
5. They belong to secret societies.
For you to be a SUP, you must be a “certified” member of any of the secret societies on campus. Always remember to take your certificate wherever you go, because you can’t win elections without it. Whenever the school screens candidates for elections, spiritually, they become clean and very holy (heaven-certified), and no longer a member of a secret group. But when the screening is over, they automatically return to their satanic ways of winning elections.

As an academically cautious Nigerian student, you shouldn’t be involved in their parade.
Also note that when one of the students in your faculty becomes a SUP, ask them to show you, love, complain a lot about all the ills students are going through, proffer solutions for them that you can’t execute yourself because you can’t be seen amongst them, criticize them for failing in the leadership positions they occupy, but please never forget that you can’t be in the gathering of secret society members, the student on probation, drunkards, purposeless students, etc. Do all of these and God will ensure that your A’s yield fruit.
I am very happy and glad that so many “educated” Nigerian students think like this. Some even possess very “poor social lives” and find it hard to interact with students in their peer group because of all the misconceptions and superstitious beliefs they have been made to absorb from home or their seniors in the “Academic” ministry.

No one is saying that you should not focus on your academic work; it is your sole choice; however, do not dismiss Student Union Politics and other non-religious extracurricular activities on campus as the worst thing since World War II.

Some even fail to understand that in our daily life, the reality of things seems to be that “who you know”, not what you know, matters more, most of the time. When you don’t invest in building your connections with friends in school, I wonder what you will build on after school. Engaging in other activities on campus surrounding your goals, dreams, and aspirations will assist you in building a chain or network of connections that might assist you later in life. Knowing people has proved to be one vital ingredient in today’s world.

Don’t get me wrong, what you know matters too. Taking your academic ministry seriously is very important. The more we learn, the more skills and knowledge we acquire, and the more equipped we are in our various fields. This determines the kind of companies or organizations we will work with. But we know very well that you might not get a job interview in the first place if you don’t know the “right” people.

Joao Alhanati captures it better; “Everyone seems to place a lot of emphasis on the importance of building “what we know,” but many fail to mention how important building “who we know” is. In some cases, “who we know” can be even more important than “what we know.” Even though many of us aren’t taught how to properly build our network of connections from our peers, there are a variety of ways we can do so. Whether it is online or in person, we have the opportunity to build on “who we know.” You never know who you’ll meet next. ”

Brothers and sisters, forget about Joao Alhanati. He does not know what he is talking about. You see this in our academic ministry; it is the only way, the truth, and the life. “So we die here.”

Emmanuel Usoro

Usoro Emmanuel is a graduate of the Department of Animal and Environmental Biology, Faculty of Sciences, University of Uyo.
He has interest in Theatre, Copywriting, Leadership, Politics, Environment and a host of other fascinating fields. "Excellence at all times" is his slogan.

During his university days he participated actively in student's unionism were he served as a law maker. He has also written and published some articles on some published magazines.
He is a Professional Copywriter, Content Creator and Event compère. He is also a Columnist at Ray of Thoughts. He loves to listen to Hymns while he writes.