On Unfulfilled Manifestos and The Cost of AFASites’ Apathy 

The session has reached a stage where the university community is quietly stirring. The elections are approaching. It is a breeze, warm or cold, that will blow political power from the current crops of student leaders to the next ones. However, it is not yet in full swing, so aspirants are busy making their electoral beds by selling their intentions and by extension, themselves, to the student community with the hopes of laying on them as winners. 

The Association of Faculty of Arts is not an exception— powers will soon, expectedly, change hands in the Association of Faculty of Arts (AFAS) and the Ayanfe-led administration will handover to the succeeding executive body. It is in light of this that it has become imperative to look into the current political situation in AFAS, particularly, how well Team Illumination’s theme has been applied to bring shine to the dull face of the faculty and the response and general body language of AFASites to this and the political happenings in the faculty. 

What heading a body, especially one that sees to governing, typically looks like, is other members working to support the head in their various capacities. The constitution of AFAS places the President as the head of the Executive Council of the Association, so it is only natural that other members of the council work together with the President to achieve the common goal(s) which is/are especially provided in the manifesto of the President.

The President of AFAS, Olaniyi Esther (Ayanfe)’s manifesto, campaign promises, and interviews with AFAS Press heavily lean into “illuminating” the Faculty of Arts, improving the “aesthetic” of the faculty, and generally doing everything differently from her predecessors. The current state of the Faculty is one that bears witness that the president has shifted from the focal point of plans for AFAS. At the very beginning of the second semester,  the president revealed in an interview with AFAS Press, that her administration was working towards revamping the Nescafé Garden of the Faculty of Arts. In the 9th week, the spot has remained the same, with its broken and missing chairs and tables and dead sockets. 

Nescafé is tucked behind the quadrangle of the Faculty of Arts, so its appearance is not what meets the eye first on entry into the faculty. The quadrangle and the parking lot of the faculty are in that position and they have consistently been a sight that further ails sore eyes. Perhaps, this is the time for AFASites to question what the President regards as the improvement of the faculty’s aesthetic. These locations have continued to be strewn with litter. Besides litter, one of the ways the appearance of the Faculty has been sinking into a poor state is that different kinds of bills and posters, especially those of aspiring student leaders, are being plastered on locations like doors, walls, seats, and even floors, as against the notice boards created for such purposes. This act is also a direct flouting of the faculty management’s orders against indiscriminate pasting of bills, and its perpetrators are succeeding in defacing the Faculty of Arts.

Despite how evident it is that the current face of the faculty is the opposite of what the President assured when campaigning, AFASites have done little in raising their voices to point this out. This is also a direct manifestation of how low the participation of AFASites has become when it comes to the governance and leadership in the association. 

Last session, AFAS elections had been delayed till after exams due to different conflicts and dramas that surrounded the amendment of the constitution and some frictions in the AFAS Faculty Legislative Council (FLC). When the elections were eventually conducted, the majority of AFASites had returned to their homes to put the session behind them. The hastened compilation of the financial members of the Association was also ridden with errors. The consequence of both major situations manifested in different forms. Even though the elections were held online, the minds of the electorates were not in AFAS which means that they were not engaging nor following the development of the electoral process, and at the election polls, a far lower number of votes were recorded. Because of the compilation error,  some AFASites were also disenfranchised. Underlying all the circumstances was also the general disinterest of AFASites in the affairs of the association.

This session, the probability of history not being repeated is bleak. One of the issues that was raised in the first FLC sitting for the semester was the financial woes of the association. The president mentioned that only 511 AFASites had paid their dues out of the over 2,000 members of the association. The dues account for one of the streams of the association’s funding. It makes an AFASite a financial member of the association. As provided in Article 34 (xiii) of the amended AFAS constitution, the receipt that each AFASite receives on paying their dues is one of the criteria for exercising their franchise. Simply put, being a financial member of the association is a condition for voting eligibility.

This current situation begs the questions of if AFASites know the constitutional provisions that guide their actions or if they are familiar with it, how many AFASites are even aware of their rights to call out unsatisfactory leadership, the importance of their participation, and the detriment of their apathy. The justification for AFASites ignoring the financial aspect of their involvement in the association’s affairs would be the promised benefits that they do not enjoy— for two sessions now, AFAS has not hosted an end of the session dinner party that satisfies all promises and requirements, and students struggle to receive their packages, getting either one or none of the items, but rarely all. However, it appears that AFASites do not fully acknowledge that they have the power to influence the leaders they vote for, to lead the association to reroute and make decisions that benefit AFASites. Being politically awake to spot and protest inadequacies and ineptitude is an effective way to drive change rather than falling silent and disengaging from the whole situation. To effect change, should AFASites not consider stirring important conversations around leadership? 

On the elections, the current constitutional provision is that eligibility for voting calls for financial membership in the association. With the report on the number of people who have paid their dues at this time, the fate of choosing the next set of AFAS leaders is in the hands of the minority, about a quarter of the association’s population. As it is in the outside world, if the majority of AFASites do not participate in the political affairs of the association, beginning with voting, how do the right candidates get voted in and how would the executives be influenced to do what is right by the electorates? If AFASites do not exercise their right to vote, how would they effectively protest the violation of their rights? If AFASites’ electoral participation continue to decline and they continue to ignore the obvious state of association’s affairs, where then is AFAS headed?