AT a time like this when the country is going to the polls on January 20, 2015, a line has to be drawn on who should be actively participating in the political arena. Our honest counsel is that let us leave politics to politicians.
Only last week, Secretary to the Cabinet Roland Msiska was urging public service workers to desist from engaging themselves in political activities during the forthcoming presidential by-election.
Students’ Representative Council president Gerald Chiluba sang from the same hymn book as Dr Msiska when he counseled students in most institutions of higher learning in the country to desist from being used as tools of political pawns of violence.
We are disturbed that students from higher learning institutions have allowed themselves to be used by selfish politicians bent on championing their own motives. For some reasons, some politicians have found higher learning institutions as the most fertile ground for political campaigns.
The latest involvement of students in political campaigns was last Thursday when some Copperbelt University (CBU) students staged a solidarity march from campus to town for Matero Member of Parliament Miles Sampa.
The Evelyn Hone College students union is also on record as having endorsed United Party for National Development’s Hakainde Hichilema.
Whereas students have a democratic right to belong to a political party of their choice, we feel some union leaders are short-changing their colleagues when they go on campaign trails with politicians purporting to endorse candidates on behalf of the general students’ populous.
Mr Chiluba brought out a cardinal issue that the students should be channeling their energies towards more constructive things that address their plight instead of jostling for K50 notes from politicians. It is best for them to engage the political leaders at an intellectual level.
There is no hiding the fact that students are not ordinary cadres.
They have a certain status attained by merely enrolling in universities and colleagues and should, therefore, use their standing in society to engage politicians on how best to overcome the hardships that most higher learning institutions are facing.
Delayed payment of meal allowances, water blues, lack of accommodation, over-enrollment and lack of jobs after completing school stand-out as some of the thorny issues students ought to be raising when they share the campaign platforms with politicians.
But instead, we have seen lately leaders of various student unions speaking at campaign rallies where they give populist commentaries and endorsements as if they have consulted their fellow students.
Students should be wary of their leaders who might want to use students’ union positions as a springboard to advance personal political ambitions to follow in the footsteps of former University of Zambia Students Union leaders who went on to occupy high offices in politics, including late president Levy Mwanawasa and Choma Central Member of Parliament Cornelius Mweetwa.
While the students’ union positions could be the perfect stepping stone for a grand entry into the political arena, it is important for individuals occupying them to always know their limits, especially as regards when to speak on behalf of fellow students and when to speak in an individual capacity.
We feel the students do not realise the power they wield not only with their right to vote but also as a major stakeholder in driving Zambia’s economy. That is why every politician worth his name on the ballot paper always visits higher learning institutions to canvas for votes.
But at the rate students are falling for the bait laid by politicians, it becomes difficult to understand who benefits from the love affair between the students and the political leaders. The two parties must agree on some truce that the students could later hold politicians accountable to after the vote.