Is the Current Crop of University Student Leaders Any Improvement Over Our Current Crap National Leaders?
Our country has suffered under years of mostly poor leadership because some of us vibrant young people who raise our hands and contest elections to become class leaders don’t have much idea what good leadership requires. We’re looking for the power and prestige and don’t care about much else. We’re to slack to investigate how leaders operated in places that show conspicuous rewards of good leadership. Fact is that most candidates for student class captain or SRC president are seeking fame, women and hopefully free money. Little else is of interest, not when they are class president, and not when they become an MP or Minister. As far as what we want to do once we are elected, most of us think all we have to do is promise the voters to do whatever they want us to do, then lie as much as necessary to fool people into thinking we know what we’re doing.
Most of us young leaders are ignorant about the details of what makes a democracy work. That is a sickness throughout PNG, after all look at how our national leaders perform. All our MPs who made Parliament into a powerless body by them joining PNC and uncritically supporting everything Peter O’Neill wanted to do have no ideas whatsoever the difference between democracy and dictatorship. Only a tiny handful of MPs have complained with any genuine feeling against Peter O’Neill’s actions to remove all controls over his power. What poor leaders we have had since independence. Nothing in the pipeline looks any better the way the generation waiting in the wings to take over the country shows our talents when we are class and school leaders.
Here at Unitech, famous for the Saga Boycott a few years back that kicked out the corrupt leaders and brought back an honest VC, we have what will be the last SRC president who was part of Saga, just like all us seniors. His name is David Kelma. President Kelma was visible at the start of the school year and even before, after he was elected. He proudly put up announcements and made comments on the Unitech facebook page. This went on for awhile. But now he and the other SRC officers are nowhere to be found on the Unitech page. Vanished altogether very quietly and without notice. Where did they go and why did they leave?
Actually they show themselves whenever they stand in front of people and in control of the microphone. When they are in a situation where communication is one way street and they can do all the talking they are happy to show up. SRC forums are a good example.
Social media is a different story and probably not much to the liking of our SRC leaders. 2 way communication is possible on the Unitech facebook page. Not so easy to quietly shut up those who want to ask questions or present information because then everyone can see you are being a dictator and trying to silence those who disagree with you.
Any leader with nothing to hide will not run away from questions and disappear from facebook sites. Those who worry that their replies might reveal their ignorance, or who are in danger of being proven guilty of lies find it uncomfortable to be present in any situation where 2 way communication is possible and they are put under pressure to answer questions that they would rather run away from.
This is what has happened with the SRC leadership on Unitech Facebook site. This is a very critical time because of possible boycott and concerns about our leadership ability to do what is right instead of becoming corrupted. Many students are reasonably concerned about all the stories that the PM has used his Ministers to reach out to SHP SRC presidents ahead of time and have compromised their ability to act independently in the best interests of the students and the nation.
The only way to deal effectively with these reasonable suspicions is to address them directly instead of pretending they don’t exist.
Yet instead of informing us by answering our questions and addressing our complaints Unitech’s SRC leaders ran away from the facebook site. They might argue that they don’t have time to be on Facebook but that would be such nonsense. If our SRC leaders thought it was important to address our complaints transparently an upfront, they would make the time to be present. They save time by answering questions on Facebook that stay up so that all students can see the answers and don’t have to repeat any questions. It is good for us students because we can ask follow up questions and the rest of us can follow the conversation on facebook.
If we want to have real democracy in PNG our leaders better start accepting criticism and addressing the complaints instead of running away from criticism or trying to silence those who ask questions that will uncover the truths we are seaking.
We want to see an SRC president at Unitech like Eddie Nagual [Administrator addition: 2014 SRC President Livingston Hosea] who led Unitech students to victory. We don’t want another SRC president like the one before Eddie who sold out the students by ending the boycott before there was victory. [Administrator addition: 2013 SRC President Livingston Hosea]. We also are tired of SRC presidents who throw money at us in the same corrupt way as politicians, while quietly and corruptly pocketing money behind our backs, like our last SRC President Richard Mabiria.
We want an honest SRC president who has a heart for this country and hates corruption and corrupt politicians, also who will handle money transparently and provide regular financial reports to all of us students.
Will David Kelma be this rare kind of SRC president that we always dream about but hardly ever elect? Early signs about David are disturbing. However lets give him a chance while monitoring him closely to see how he performs.
