TEAM EVOLUTION: A PERFECT EXAMPLE OF A MUSICAL DISSONANCE
By Oluwapelumi King
People who are familiar with music will know what a dissonance means. A dissonance is a discordant sound or a lack of harmony in music. You might be wondering what music has got to do with the current crisis AFAS has found itself in, it will become clear as you read through.
You might notice in the definition of dissonance the keywords like “lack of harmony in music”. The lack of harmony is the apparent disunity between the current members of the Executives while the music stands for their governance. This lack of harmony in the music has led to the discordant sounds which represents blame shift, lack of funds for packages, a crisis filled dinner and so many others.
It is normal for different individuals to have disagreements but to have disagreements that have crippled some of the affairs of the Faculty of Arts and left Afasites angry and moaning at not being able to collect their package is a new low.
The apparent crack and resultant discord has been obvious when news flew round that some members of the Executive arm did not support Akoem’s bid for Presidency. One could have easily dismissed it, as these members picking or supporting who they thought was a better candidate is normal and totally within their right to do so, but a closer look at the whole scenario suggests something much deeper than that. In fact, this even deepened the divide and the disunity in the Executive body particularly when their supporters and sometimes, they themselves begin to throw subtle shades at one another. Any concerned Afasite who is good at noticing things will see that for some members, it was not about picking a better candidate as the case should clearly be, but about joining the opposition, add their own contributions to make sure a candidate did not win. How else do you explain a certain member of the Executive asking people to vote for their candidate on the election day? How do I know? This was experienced first-hand by the press correspondent on the election day.
This is not to placate or absolve any candidate, this is only to show how deep the disharmony was prior to this dinner debacle. They could have shown their support for the other candidate in a better and more subtle way. Although we could argue that elections are individual matters and not a party system, yet, going against someone who is a member of the executive council just as you are, tells a big story. For instance, a certain member of the executive was supporting a certain candidate over another, from what was observed, he did it in the cleanest way possible. There were no subtle shades from him towards any of the opponents of his candidates. He even congratulated those who won. One would have thought and expected the whole election drama to end with the announcements of the results. It was also widely expected that differences will be put aside and they work together to have a befitting end to their administration. The events that happened afterwards was a real bummer.
It should be noted that all but one social event had already been done before the elections. The only social event that was left was the dinner which was mostly to handled by the VICE PRESIDENT to be assisted by the SOCIAL DIRECTOR according to the AFAS constitution. This would have been a very good development if the SOCIAL DIRECTOR and VICE PRESIDENT could have least worked together, however what we saw was the SOCIAL DIRECTOR sending a letter to the faculty legislative council absolving himself of the duties in the dinner he was constitutionally supposed to assist in. When he was reached by our correspondent, he said the VICE PRESIDENT totally kept him out of the loop in the affairs of the dinner committee and the organisation of the dinner. In his own words, “the office of VICE PRESIDENT did not plan the dinner in conjunction of the office of the SOCIAL DIRECTOR”. He also claimed that the Vice President has not added him thitherto to the dinner committee group. The persisting question here now is why would two people who were supposed to work together to conduct a successful dinner for the people who voted them be at loggerheads knowing fully well it bears foreseeable risks to the overall success of the dinner or the general welfare of Afasites? It is obvious that Afasites who voted them in and who paid for the dinner were not considered as a prerequisite for working together. There are series of question rising from this;
1 Did the Vice President intentionally keep the Social Director out of the loop to take all the credit for the dinner?
2 Did she do it to pursue her own agenda? (As the President has repeatedly stated)
3 Did Akoem withdraw from the dinner to be on the safe side knowing fully well that the lack of unity and “conjunction” between the both of them will eventually lead to the failure of the dinner, since he is in fact to become the new President?
The answers, though they might vary on how people see things and who they support, they will however have common themes: disunity, discord, disharmony.
The PRESIDENT, after claiming he was not aware of the withdrawal of the money for the dinner, on which the Vice President would not let him in, took a similar route as the SOCIAL DIRECTOR, and released a letter, not to the FLC this time, but to AFASITES saying he should not be viewed as the cause and reason of the crisis ensuing from the dinner as he was not involved in the dinner planning process. This explains why the President and the Social director snubbed the dinner/after party (an after party which was attended by the UI Student’s union President and some key UI SU excos) and opted to attend a dinner organised by a department in the faculty of Arts.
This brings us to another interesting development. The dinner/after party was only attended by three excos (the third only being there as a SU exco not as AFAS as was evident to all who attended). The PRO who was in charge of the announcement of the dinner, the sport director, the treasurer, the social director and of course, the President were all absent. Was it caused by the discord? YES. This was of course confirmed by the answer an AFAS exco gave to a question asked by our correspondent on why he did not attend dinner. He said “I just did not want to show up for the dinner because of the visible mess up in the dinner. We are not really “TOGETHER” as everyone (Executive members) is just doing their thing on THEIR OWN.” Meanwhile, he also expressed his shock that Afasites’ package money would be used for dinner. The Treasurer when contacted for missing the dinner/after party, she said she could not make it because it was too late (11:30pm) after she finished what she was doing and her clothes were home and so she had to sleep in school.
Another issue which shows their lack of unity is with the dinner funds. From the released statements of the President and the answers he gave from the interviews, it could be implied that the President, Financial Secretary and the Vice President are all not on the same tune. Quite easily, they could just sit together to figure out the best solution to the dinner funds and a reasonable agreement could have been reached by all parties involved, an agreement that is binding to all parties from which no one can run away. Instead, it was the other way round. What happened can be seen in an earlier released article: AFAS DINNER:THE STORY BEHIND CLOSE DOORS (part 1) and the “press statements” of the President and Financial secretary.
It has become obvious that the members of TEAM EVOLUTION have forgotten that an injury to one is an injury to all. Any mishap or glory of any member of the team will be shared by all of them. The continuous “I was not involved” anthem sung by some of their members to be on the safe side shows the deep discord and dissonance among them. They are no longer a team, perhaps they never were from the start. What can be clearly seen is the individualistic nature of the “team members”.
In times of crisis, particularly in student government, it is important that there is a united front particularly in public. Any other thing such as disunity, blame shifting, constant attacks on one another will only make things worse as is already the case here. We all should be ready to continue hearing the disharmonious tune and the discordant sounds from their music, till they discover the importance of a harmonious tune.
