Decorating the Kingdom Scepter: A Scholarly Tradition of Political Patronage

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          Israel Bakare

Long live the spirit of the Union! Victoria Ascerta! These are the songs we all know, it is the chants we all have mastered, and rituals we all perform with conviction.

Yet perhaps, just perhaps, another slogan deserves a louder ovation: “Long live the Invisible.” Applause! Applause!! Applause!!!

Congratulations are certainly in order for such a well-decorated honour. It is no small feat to remain politically relevant long after elections have packed their bags and moved on. While ordinary students graduate and pursue uncertain futures, the "King Maker" achieve something far greater: permanent residency in the corridors of student politics.

Honour, in Ogbafemi politics, belongs to whom it is carefully arranged for. What a beautiful ceremony it is, as some receive votes, others attain office, but the truly accomplished receive awards.

How reassuring it is to know that student politics still recognizes excellence, not necessarily in service, but in endurance, in influence, and in the fine art of remaining present after years of graduation. After all, who shields the elected, if not those whose shadows outlive every electoral calendar?

We proudly chant, “No to cultism activities and hooliganism,” yet, elections resemble battlefields complete with their own arsenal of intimidation, loyalty enforcement, and carefully managed chaos. Weapons may not always be visible, but their effects rarely hide.

The irony is almost poetic, those who promise protection against oppression often master its application, those who condemn thuggery sometimes refine it into strategy, and the campus, once thought to produce scholars, now occasionally graduate first-class professionals in intimidation, well-trained, and politically certified.

Loyalty, fascinatingly, has evolved. It no longer requires a constitution to exist. Influence no longer requires office to thrive. Power circulates where allegiance is rewarded, and where prestige is traded, not for service, but for proximity.

Despite whispers, despite murmurs from inconvenient voices, the ceremony proceeds, the award is conferred, the crown fits perfectly on the head it was always meant for.

Perhaps that is the lesson, tenures end, positions rotate, but influence simply changes seats, office holders may renew themselves, but the “invisible” does not age.

And yet, somewhere beneath the applause, a quieter truth struggles to breathe: Student politics was meant for students, not for shadows, permanent fixtures, or invisible architects of visible outcomes.

Mentorship could have been the legacy, scholarship could have been the inheritance, but allegiance has proven far more profitable. History, of course, is selective, it remembers the ones who carried people forward and forgets those who carried power sideways.

And the future?

The future is patient, it observes and certainly will decide whether today’s applause was deserved or merely rehearsed, whether influence was service or performance, whether the stage of student politics produced leaders or actors reciting well-practiced scripts.

So once again, congratulations! May future generations learn to distinguish between visibility and value, between applause and accountability, between influence and impact.

The trumpet has sounded, and the struggle appropriately continues until the day awards in student politics are no longer given for being unseen, but for being accountable to those who are.

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