This year’s MUSO elections come with a lot of crazy developments
as compared to the previous ones. It’s one election that was nullified by the
dean of students even before the counting of the votes commenced. The decision
was later over ruled by the dean of students prompting the counting of the
votes a day after they were cast. Then come the power sharing issue. The main
source of trouble was a list voters who were written on foolscaps after their
names went missing from the voters’ register. Interestingly even some aspirants
had their names missing from the voters’ register. The voting process itself took the longest
time ever since the establishment of this institution. Are there no other ways
of solving the whole issue of the voters’ register and the time set aside for
voting?
I had to seek some explanations on the voters’ register
dilemma from a SEC commissioner. The commissioner who accepted to give some
explanation however sought anonymity. He said this was a tricky issue that
needed careful and wise actions so as to deal with. He sighted that the green
book clearly states that bona-fide students are those whose names appears on
the nominal roll. He however said that blocking those whose names missed on the
register from voting would block out many legitimate students from voting. He
said that since the nominal roll only contains names of those that have cleared
their fees, it would not be in order to say that they are the only bona-fide
students. There are many legitimate students who due to financial constraints
usually pay school fees at the end of the semester. Would it be in order to
block them from voting? I still had not been given a satisfactory explanation.
As a man of wisdom he went ahead to give me examples of flows that came with
this voters register. He said there may arise a situation where a number of
students have left his/her student ID to a campus shylock as collateral for a
loan. The shylock may use these IDs to vote by giving to other people for the
purpose of voting in favour of those he/she had interest in.
“Interestingly even some aspirants had their names missing from the voters’ register.”
So what’s the solution? The commissioner stressed the need
for decentralizing the election process to various schools. He said there has
always been minimal cases of missing of names when various school associations
are conducting elections. He said there was need for students to vote in their
respective schools since it would save on time and allegations of students from
other campuses being ferried to participate in elections meant for main campus.
He said this could help in sorting out the problem. He also added that it would
be advisable for students to check the availability of their names on the voters’
register a few days to the election date.
