By Mohamed Jaward Nyallay
Members of the Academic Staff Association (ASA) of Fourah Bay College (FBC) have elected Williete James as their new President. Mrs James who is the Head of Mass Communication Department at the college, becomes the first woman to be elected to lead the association.
But her victory hasn’t come without controversy. Her only opponent in the contest, fellow Mass Communication lecturer, Tonya Musa, dropped out of the race on the eve of the elections. In a letter which was written by Musa on Monday, he contested the authenticity of the electoral register and the duration of the petition window allowed for by the electoral commission. In the letter, he complained that his request for the voter list two weeks earlier from the elections body yielded no response.
He added that the list the Commission displayed had several questions yet there was no time to rectify it.
“In the interest of peace and the future of FBC, I quit out with immediate effect,” he declared.
Chief Electoral Commissioner of the elections, Reverend David Massaqoui, told Politico that the reasons forwarded by Mr Musa were not enough excuses for him to drop out of the race.
“That was very unfortunate in our opinion as a commission. Personally, I felt bad about that, considering the fact that it was an issue that could have been mitigated by sitting down, talking and correcting things,” Rev. Massaqoui said.
He blamed the delay in publishing the list to the poor record management in the college and the university, noting that they couldn’t get a comprehensive list to publish even when they requested that departments send in names of lecturers.
“We went down to the secretariat at IPAM, talked to the registrar and she helped us talk to a colleague who gave us a comprehensive list. We had that on Wednesday. We had manifesto presentations on Thursday, and we showed it to them that we just had it.”
Rev. Massaquoi said they couldn’t publish the list on Friday because lecturers had to lecture and handle exams, among other engagements.
Mrs James also expressed disappointment about Musa’s decision to drop out of the race. In a telephone interview with Politico, she said:
“I think he shouldn’t have done that in the first place. I don’t think that is the right attitude.”
She added, “You cannot be pointing out an error and then quitting out at the same time.”
We contacted Mr Musa for comments but he declined and instead gave us a copy of his letter addressed to the electoral commission.
According to the electoral commissioner, 100 members of staff voted in the election. James got 88 of the votes, while Musa got three. The remaining nine votes were declared invalid.
Despite the controversy generated by Musa’s decision, however, Mrs James have extended an olive branch for cooperation. In her maiden statement released on Tuesday, after she was declared winner, said sad:
“Today I extend and olive branch to Mr Tonya Musa who could not finish the race. Our campaign team is saddened by the anomaly… I call on him to come and partner with me in this great task to take our association to a much higher level.”
As part of her broader functions as the President, she said the focus will now be on a 17-point plan that she campaigned on by developing a strategic plan that will be shared with staff.
“I want us to capture them in the strategic plan that we say we are going to seat down and do. And this strategic plan will be presented to all members of ASA,” she noted.
Whiles developing the plan, she said her immediate focus is to address the outstanding issues surrounding their emoluments.
“There are other pending issues regarding our emoluments that we have to tackle urgently. We will be meeting as a general membership to also understand the regulatory framework in place regarding our finances, what and what we are dealing with and what are some of the implications of these frameworks.
ASA consists of lecturers and other administrative staff in the college. As part of its work, the association mediates, collaborates and interfaces with the top management of the college on behalf of its members.
© 2019 Politico Online
