HOW ACCOUNTABLE ARE OUR LEADERS?

….A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody

-Thomas Paine

In ethics and governance, accountability is answerability, blameworthiness and the expectation of account giving. In leadership roles, accountability is the acknowledgement and assumption of responsibility for actions, products, decisions and policies including the administration, governance and implementation and also be answerable for resulting consequences .

What is expected in Students’ Unionism is mature and responsible leadership from the Executives as they create a link between the students and the authorities. Everyone wants to be a leader; however, few are prepared to accept the accountability that goes with it. A good leader should always be prepared to face the people when the time comes to answer queries. To our executives, you should be transparent enough with the money that will be spent during the course of your administration. #200 as Students’ Union fee from each student when calculated is not chicken change and for this reason there must be proper documentation so we can know how our monies were spent; we have the right to. If our executives will not be willing to open up to the students at the end, then students will assume that our monies have been embezzled again.

To our faculty executives as well, prove yourselves worthy of the trust we entrusted in you. A student that paid close to #8,000 as faculty dues will be expecting something fabulous from you. It is very easy to say you spent a particular amount of money on miscellaneous but not too easy to give documentation of those little ‘stipends’, and you will have to account for them. The time is coming when you will have to give your financial report to your people, when this time comes you should produce it without any excuses.

Our departmental executives, we are still expecting what you have in stock for us. Our amiable executives should not forget the promises they made when presenting their manifestoes to us. Endeavour to make this week great.

The keys to brand success are self-definition, transparency, authenticity and accountability. We have had experiences where the executives spent our money without being able to tell us what they spent it on, but there would be no room for that now. Now is the time for advice, very soon, it would be the time for query. When that ‘time’ finally comes, we are not ready to listen to storiesas we have in the past.

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