SGA president-elect Adran Gibbs thanked his vice president, his campaign and the student body after winning the Oct. 31 election.
Gibbs and Prince Ohene-Nyako secured 84.1 percent of the vote, defeating their opponents Otto Wimer and Donald Duechting who received 15.9 percent of the vote.
“It’s a very surreal experience,” Gibbs said. “Honestly no words can describe how thankful and blessed I am to be in this situation.”
Gibbs said the first thing his administration will do is prioritize their goals and rank them by what will be most to least difficult.
“Research is always going to be our first step,” Gibbs said. “We just want to make sure that we’re doing things the right way, we’re not going to do anything too preemptive.”
Gibbs received 1,761 votes to Wimer and Duechting’s 333. Gibbs said he felt their campaign was very student-centric.
“I feel like it was a very positive campaign,” Gibbs said. “The campaign was never, ever about ourselves. It about students. We never wanted to to put the spotlights on ourselves, we really just wanted to highlight OU students.”
Gibbs said he still wants to listens to the objectives of the Wimer/Duechting campaign.
“They’re still students here at the university and their concerns are valid,” Gibbs said. “I’d be more than happy to sit down with both of them or even their whole campaign team just to see what are some of the things that we can do within our purview.”
Wimer said he wished Gibbs and Ohene-Nyako the best of luck, and that he hopes the Wimer/Duechting’s platform points of Title IX reform and parking are heard by their administration.
“Obviously we’re disappointed,” Wimer said. “It’s more about making sure that the issues are heard, it’s less about us winning.”
Wimer said he felt his campaign should have talked to more student organizations, and that although he felt they did well in the debate, it did not have much weight with voters. He also said he thought his campaign should have talked to more of the Greek organizations to mobilize more voters, and that they didn’t engage with voters as much as the Gibbs campaign did.
“The debate doesn’t actually change people’s minds all that much,” Wimer said. “I think ultimately it’s a question of just talking to a lot of people.”
Gibbs and Ohene-Nyako will replace current SGA president Yaseen Shurbaji and vice president Hannah Hardin assuming the election results are verified by SGA’s superior court and grievances are resolved.
“I’m just very very honored to even be in this position,” Gibbs said. “It means a lot to me and my campaign staff that we even got to this point. I’m incredibly grateful for all the people that voted for us… we really appreciate it.”
