Commonwealth JCR President Appointed As The New UG SRC Veep

The Executive Committee of the University of Ghana (UG) has appointed the President of the Commonwealth Hall Junior Common Room (JCR), Barnabas Mensah to serve as the acting Vice President for the Student Representative Council (SRC).

It would be recalled that JCR President of Akuafo Hall and General Secretary of the Mensah Sarbah Hall Kwame Amo Ntow Fianko and Rubby Nkansah respectively were appointed by the Executive Committee to steer the affairs of the SRC according to article 25 clause 7 of the UGSRC constitution.

Barnabas Mensah becomes the latest to join the group of interim executives that were appointed sometime in July.

He was appointed at a crunch Executive Committee on August 14 comprising of all available Presidents of the various JCRs on campus.

Barnabas Mensah is a level 300 Geography and Linguistics Student of the University of Ghana and was elected as JCR President for the Commonwealth Hall in February 2020 for the 2020/2021 academic year.

The Vice President acts as an ex-official member of SRC committees and among other duties according to article 19 of the UGSRC Constitution.

This follows the failure of the SRC to hold elections to elect new principal officers for the 2020/2021 academic year and subsequently the removal en-block of the Isaac Agyemang led administration. ExCom triggered article 25 (7) to bring into force interim leaders.

The interim leaders appointed under such provisions ‘shall have such powers as pertain to the respective substantive offices as provided for in this Constitution’.

Well known as Vandal Lyrics, Mr Barnabas Mensah has been one of the JCR presidents who suffered extremely vigorous and unpleasant opposition in their quest to gain power. Contesting with two other presidential candidates who rocked shoulders in fame in the hall, he reportedly emerged winner with over fifty percent of the total votes casted in the November 2019 Commonwealth Hall JCR executives election (per the provisional results issued from the office of the EC ).

The electoral commission was sent to court (judicial board) on account of alleged election malpractices. After the court ruling, the EC slated a re-election for the following semester. The same semester saw the resignation of the EC chairman. EC chairman resigns? A re-election? That was unprecedented! Else the erstwhile re-election was held a very long time ago!

Fast forward, the re-election was held in February, 2020 with no reduction in the number of presidential candidates. Indeed, it was a very fair election under the auspices of Mr. Jarvis Mensah Otabil, the new EC chairman. Not an iota of election default was recorded. Election results were declared with Mr Barnabas Mensah having emerged as the president elect again with over fifty percent of the total votes casted. It sounds more interesting to note that percentagewise, he had more votes in the re-election than in the primary election.

Other winners were Mr. Lord Hagan ( JCR Vice President), Mr. Nathan Nana Afari ( JCR Secretary) and Mr. Eric Osei-Bonsu Obeng (JCR Treasurer). Albeit not synonymous to that of Mr Barnabas Mensah, some of them faced the brunt of opposition in both elections.

Five months after he assumed office, he has been elevated into the office of the vice president of the University of Ghana Students’ Representative Council.
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Biography
Born on August 19, Mr Barnabas Mensah completed his junior and secondary education in the Western region. Air Force Junior High School and St. Johns’ School are his respective alma mater.
He has served members of the university of Ghana in numerous capacities through associations and voluntary organizations. It is worth noting that he was an acting president for the University of Ghana chapter of the Youth Initiative For Africa Development and also a member of the University of Ghana Plastic Recycling Project team. He is a member of PENSA UG.

He will be in his final year as an undergraduate in the next academic year reading Geography and Linguistics.


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