Campus Confessions: How a sermon convinced me to jump into university politics

I was afraid of jumping into the campus politics pool.

Politics had always been described as a dirty game. At the time, I held a Christian Union (CU) leadership position.

Hence, I battled mentally with the idea of putting myself up for a position in the university’s students’ council.

While others encouraged me to join the race, I got a lot of jeer from Christian naysayers saying that since I had taken a religious position, I was bound to ‘get.

While other candidates had put out their campaign posters and had started campaigning, I was still on the fence. I knew I was ready because leadership was not new to me, but I needed a nudge.

Interestingly, on the Sunday before the deadline of nominations and submissions, the pastor preached about the importance of Christians taking up political leadership spaces. 

He said that if we continued associating politics with evil and did not step up, then evil would continue to dominate. 

When the preacher asked to pray for the candidates, I saw each one of them moving to the podium. I had to make up my mind. It was now or never.

After a tumultuous battle in my mind, I finally decided to stand u and walk to the front. This action was met with deafening cheers from the congregation.

Immediately after the service, coalitions were looking to sign me up into their teams and when I decided on the one I wanted, I got pulled into taking my campaign photo that Sunday because they thought I would change my mind.

By Monday, my posters were everywhere.

After presenting a fierce campaign, I won the election as the Head of Faculty Congress Representative.

On the other hand, I decided to be me and put my best foot forward against what others had expected. I maintained my CU position, which I made sure never hindered my job as a student representative, and I loved every bit of it as it was not a commitment I was struggling with.

Even though politics was deemed dirty, I had the most insightful and rewarding time as a student leader.

I built my skills and gained knowledge that I would never have if I didn’t have that platform.

More importantly, I learned to live with people I did not agree with, which made me open to always finding a common ground despite our differences.

As narrated by Ruth Magak.

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