Coming up with a team of 4, without any contest, to represent the youngster, the middle cadre and the captain would have been a great idea if only we are willing to have wide consultation to select “the Team,” that will truly represent us. There have been numerous questions on how the Consultative Forum (CF) is constituted. Were they selected by their respective constituencies or selected based on their loyalty to certain individuals in their respective constituencies?
You can’t bring together certain people that were hand-picked out of vested interest as CF members to decide on who represents all of us. Did the CF reps you selected from different units consulted their respective units? The CF sat alone and the only people they found “suitable” to contest in the Senate election are the current ASUU Excos, past Excos, and loyalists, and you expect the university community to applaud you? C’mon!
You presented some individuals that do not represent the diversity of the university as encouraged by the relevant laws of the land and you expect everyone to say “Yes Sir”. That’s not a team. You forgot that we are academics and not zombies. That was not the sort of training we received as students of knowledge. The worst part of it is featuring failed former Council members for another 2 years representation. Haba! Rewarding failure with failure? That is not the culture upon which the university was built.
What baffled me most is how individuals that became HoDs, Union leaders, Council members, etc, in their late 30s and early 40s now considered those in their mid and late 40s as “small boys” that are ambitious. A good leader accommodates all; The young, the middle cadre, the old, the Muslims, the Christians, etc.
A good Union leadership listens to the comments of its members and takes corrections. But ours is different. The mind of the acclaimed “owners” of the branch is already made up and all the talks make no sense to them. They rather give the talks their egocentric interpretations. They don’t want to accept that things must not go their ways all the time. Despite echoing it at various fora, they have refused to understand that there is great lost of confidence from the people they ought to be representing; the very people that they are suppose to lean on for support. Sometimes we get carried away with Power and God-fatherism so much that we forget the reality that is staring at our faces.
Meanwhile, Section 2 of the Universities (Miscellaneous Provisions Amendment) Act 2003 provided in Composition 2(1): e, f & g that the council shall consist of
– four persons representing the various interests and broadly representative of the whole federation appointed by the president,
– four persons appointed by the senate from among its members, and
– two persons appointed by the congregation from among its members.
So, the issue of interest groups is not only mentioned but encouraged as that is a way of ensuring inclusiveness of all rather than a monopoly of selected few. If the so called “team” does not represent the various interest groups in the university, such groups are at liberty to field their representatives and let the ABU senate decide.
The long list of colleagues contesting for the 4 positions at the Council should have made them to reflect since we have refused to learn from the congregation election to the Council. They are again giving it their interpretation. The long list just shows that the branch is not running an all-inclusive union.
The problem in ABU ASUU is beyond the Senate election to the Council. We have a union leadership disaster to fix. We are in dare need of a leadership that will run an all-inclusive union in the university. Not a union that shuts out a whole community of people. We need a union with an Exco that represents the diversity of the university.
Dear senate members, the university is in a trying time and in need of a vibrant Council. We need vibrant internal members to represent our collective interest. You have a list of colleagues that consists of fine young star, middle cadre, and the captains that want to represent your interest at the Council. Select a team of solution developers and not noise makers. People that will work with their head and not their mouth. Please, make a good choice.