AN APOCALYPSE OF TEAM PARAGONS’ INNER CHAMBER (2): An Interview with Princess Amofuesi Franklin

By Tolu Ifedayo 

FATSSSA PRESS: Good afternoon; Miss Princess. I'm Toluwalope Ifedayo, a member of FATSSSA press. I humbly request an interview with you as regarding the last administration, in which you held the position of treasurer.   

 

PRINCESS: Hi. Good afternoon, I'm doing great, Thank you. Alright.  

 

FATSSSA PRESS: I have a few questions. 

 How would you describe the work environment in the last administration? 

 

PRINCESS: Do you mean the Secretariat? 

 

 FATSSSA PRESS: Yeah- it also extends to the quality of [the] relationship that exists in the secretariat; was it cordial? Or a toxic and oppressive environment? 

 

PRINCESS: I wouldn't describe it as toxic but I would say there was a lot of disunity. 

 

FATSSSA PRESS:  Disunity? Did this "disunity" in any way affect the efficiency of your office? Or your performance as the Treasurer? 

 

PRINCESS: It didn't affect my performance really but it caused some issues that involved "excos" names which could have been avoided.  

 

FATSSSA PRESS:  Can you throw more light [on] these issues? 

 

PRINCESS: Okay, so what I mean by this is that, for instance, there are situations whereby, although every office has their responsibility, and we're not actually supposed to interfere in people's responsibility, but there are some things that actually require joint efforts. Although, a particular office is in charge of certain programs in the faculty. The office in charge of it is not supposed to just do stuff. They are actually supposed to carry along everybody. 

 

There were situations whereby we just suddenly saw stuff and were like, okay, who knew about this? How come this is like this? And there was no agreement or there was no discussion regarding this? 

 

Okay, maybe we had to do events, and we suddenly see posters, we see flyers for the events, and there was no prior information amongst other exco regarding the events, to deliberate, maybe about the events. We just saw flyers, and it's even from what they release out that we find we get to know information about the events. 

 

Or there were a lot of issues like this last dinner, too-the Fatsssa dinner, the planning was just between the president and the social director and maybe the committee. They didn't carry along other members of the exco. So it was a few days, I think two to three days before the events. When we got to see a few days, let me not say two to three days, but a few days before the events, we got to see flyers. They didn't tell us.  

 

We didn't know about the budget, we didn't know about anything. So we just saw stuff like that, and a lot of situations like that. The other instance of disunity was also that of the president. This disunity actually was really led by the president. I'm not saying it's an intentional act, but I would describe it as disunity because I think as a leader, a leader that has a team. In a team, the team leader is actually supposed to carry along the other team members before certain activities are done or before a decision is made. 

 

Just the leader just taking actions without carrying everybody along and they were sometimes told that they would, a decision might be made, the same leader would make a decision which is in person of the president and other people are not consenting, they've not responded, they're not consenting or agreeing to such decision but eventually, the team leader still goes ahead to carry out such decisions, despite the fact that the team members are not agreeing to such decisions so there are a lot of situations like that. 

 

And yeah, that's just one of the ways I would describe it as disunity. So for this disunity, again, the reason why I would also describe it as disunity is the fact that this thing actually caused a lot of issues. We had a time when there were some events like the picnic, the FATSSSA picnic that took place. I think first semester we did, not agree that all Exco actually agreed to that the picnic should hold because when we saw the whole criteria, we saw that this thing was actually going to cause debt, and lead to debt it was not looking feasible. 

 

And there were some suggestions against the picnic holding, but the president and the social director still went ahead to take laws to their ends and eventually, it caused issues.  

 And this thing actually, whenever there's an issue like that, they don't mention the people that the office in charge of is, instead they mention all exco. When we see news from the press saying, the excos did this, many times not all exco are aware, we just find our names being rubbed against the issue at hand, because of the fact that we are all excos, and many times Disunity is what causes this; because many times we are not aware of the situation before it happens. A brief summary of what disunity is; thank you.  

 

FATSSSA PRESS: Okay; thank you. My next question; the former Gen. Sec. alleges that the former President asked you to go to the bank to withdraw money for an event unapproved by the authorities, Is this true?  If true, was there an occurrence of such before then?  Did it stop after the first attempt?  

Would you have gone ahead if the former Gen. Sec had not intervened? 

 

PRINCESS: Excuse me, the former Gen. Sec, alleges that, I can't remember when the president actually told me to withdraw without approval. The president has no, I don't want to say has no right, but the president can not tell me to go withdraw money that has not been approved. Although there were situations whereby, out of the fact that he wants to, he wants to disburse money as quick as possible, sometimes he just wants to like, oh, let's just do this thing. He wants to like, just get it done because of a specific reason 

 

The only time I know that he rushed and was like, let's just do this thing was when he, we needed to withdraw for FATSSSA book, and his reason behind his reason for pushing it, that let's just do this thing. Even if the staff Adviser does not approve, although I declined, it wasn't the Gen. Sec. that intervened in me declining. I know what is right and I know what it's supposed to be. 

 

So, the Gen. Sec. did not interfere, did not influence my decision, or the gen Sec did not influence the decision for me not to withdraw because I know what I'm supposed to do. I know that I'm not supposed to actually withdraw without the necessary authority, the necessary authorization and the necessary approval. So. I think I would like to correct that. If that is what the Gen. Sec. said, then it's not completely true. 

 

She didn't influence such. She actually talked and said, oh, how are we going to do stuff like this? But I know I was not actually going to do anything without the necessary approval. Then back to the question; Yes, I was saying that it was when the money for the book needed to be withdrawn. So, the said reason by the president was that things were going high, the economy was not stable. I think that particular period was when the dollar was really fluctuating. A lot of things were just changing so quickly, so things were getting so expensive. 

 

So what was making him actually rush was because the budgets for the book, the vendor, the person that was actually going to do the book, they already had an agreement, and the person already said if it passed a particular time, it would increase because things, prices were going up. So, the president did not want such a thing to happen, which was why he was rushing. He did not want prices of goods to actually come up and affect the budget that has already been approved by the House. 

So, it's not even like the house did not approve. 

 

The House actually approved. However, normally the procedure that usually happens when we're about to withdraw before we withdraw a cheque. After the House approves the budget, we don't just go to withdraw, the staff adviser has to approve, has to check through the budget that has been approved by the House, scrutinizes it, then the approval of the staff advisor. So, after the staff advisor approves, we now need the signature of the sub-dean. If the sub-dean does not sign, we cannot withdraw any money. 

 

We need the signature of the sub-dean, the president, and the treasurer. So if two people sign and one person doesn't sign, we can't withdraw. So what the President was rushing us for then, wasn't the house; the sub-dean was available to sign but the staff adviser wasn't available to approve the budget, so he was like, let us do this thing, so we made him understand that no matter the situation, we can’t withdraw the money without the necessary procedures. So that is all I can say concerning this, but once again I will like to correct that it wasn't the Gen sec that made me refuse; she expressed her displeasure and concern about it but she didn't influence the decision of not withdrawing without the necessary approval, thank you.  

 

The FATSSSA Press correspondent proceeds to tender a piece of evidence on the Gen. Sec’s assertion

PRINCESS: Excuse me please, I would like to emphasize the fact that the Gen. Sec did not influence the decision not to go yes she intervened out of her concern.  Is she saying that I actually don't know what I'm supposed to do? I know that we can't withdraw without the necessary approval so I don't know I just need to clarify the fact because this sounds to me, this seems like okay,  maybe the treasurer was actually going to follow the order of the president then the  Gen Sec now came up and said no don't go. And I obeyed, no, never the president even knows, I won't compromise,  so it wasn't the Gen. Sec. that influenced it but she intervened and she talked but it was not because of what she said that I didn't do it.  

 

 I've always made known to the President that without following procedures nothing can be done. So I just needed to clarify that the Gen. Sec didn't influence my decision, she just expressed her displeasure. Thank you.  

 

FATSSSA PRESS: So the last question is how would you rate your performance; relative to your manifesto? 

 

 PRINCESS: Great 

 

FATSSSA PRESS: Thank you so much. The interview has come to an end. 

 

PRINCESS: Okay, thank you.