By UCJ Election Watchroom
Press Night was designed to be the one evening when pressmen could test aspirants with integrity and without favour.
Although, from time immemorial, subtle advances have always been made to pressmen discussing loyalty to their Hall of Residence, this year it came dangerously close to being compromised by those who would rather the process fail than risk a candidate being exposed.
Between an attempted impersonation at the venue, a quiet campaign of emotional appeals during grading, and covert efforts to extract the general knowledge questions before the grilling, a pattern emerges that the institution cannot afford to ignore.
A Stranger at The Gate
The most alarming incident was when an individual attempted to pass himself off as a correspondent of Indy Press at the venue, apparently hoping to take his place among accredited pressmen.
The attempt was detected and failed, thanks to the Union of Campus Journalists’ prior accreditation of every pressman, but the fact that it was made at all should trouble everyone who values the integrity of the evening.
An impostor during a press night is a potential scorer, a potential leak, or a potential conduit between a camp and the people whose judgement it wishes to bend. Whoever sent him and whatever truly was his motive, the question the corps must press is what he hoped to gain, maybe the item 7 to be given?
However, while observers were not admitted, it must be regarded that innocent curiosity does not usually come disguised as a false press membership and tall tales from someone who has been in school for 3 sessions now.
The press night is still valid because there is the guarantee that those who watched, questioned and scored aspirants were the people who were vetted and entrusted with that responsibility.
“He has worked hard”: Tales for Backdoor Entreaties
The second breach was even more outrageous and, in some respects, more corrosive.
During the press screening, loyalists and supporters of a certain aspirant from Indy approached pressmen directly, and not with arguments about the candidate’s performance. They came with stories: of how much the aspirant had sacrificed, how hard the road had been, how cruel a low score would be to someone who had tried so earnestly.
Some entreaties were pitched at the personal level, invoking friendship, sympathy and the vague suggestion that a generous mark was a kindness the pressman would not regret.
This is lobbying, whatever tone it adopts. Its force lies in the fact that it does not look like pressure. A tearful appeal is harder to refuse than a crude offer, and the pressman who yields can tell himself he was merely being humane.
But grading is not an exercise in compassion. A score that has been softened for one aspirant is a score taken from another, who presumably prepared just as hard and asked nobody for mercy. Emotional manipulation of this kind does not merely tilt a result, but is an insult that suggests that the press judgement is negotiable and its integrity is worth a bargain.
The approach also reveals a confusion about what Press Night is for. Aspirants are put before the press precisely so that the quality of their answers, composure and grasp of the issues may be assessed independently of their allies’ devotion.
Loyalists who campaign at the scoring table are saying, in effect, that they do not trust their candidate’s performance to speak for itself.
Begging for Questions
The third episode is the gravest, because it goes to the heart of the exercise. Certain pressmen were also quietly pressed to disclose or trade knowledge of the general questions before the grilling began.
The approaches were made discreetly and apart from the main body of the press, which is itself telling. People seeking legitimate information do not generally look for it in corridors.
These general knowledge questions are not public knowledge but discreet screening material that stays with the Editor-in-Chief, but the solicitation itself is an offence against the process. It treats the press as a leaky vessel and its confidences as currency.
Conclusion: Don’t Let Desperation Ruin You
Taken together, the three incidents point in one direction. A camp confident of its candidate does not send an impostor to the press section, does not importune scorers with sentimental appeals, and does not hunt for the questions.
These are the habits of loyalists who suspect, perhaps rightly, that their candidates cannot win on merit alone. Desperation is the common thread, and it is dangerous because it is indifferent to the damage it does to institutions along the way.
While this year’s attempts from everyone had been taken and resolved without incident to the candidacy of any of the aspirants, it must not be interpreted as timidity on the part of the press.
Subsequent attempts, whether in this election cycle or in any after, would be interpreted more strongly as a mandated attack on the integrity of the press by said candidates and would lead to a disqualification from the press night of all candidates involved.
This report is part of the Union of Campus Journalists, University of Ibadan (UCJ UI)’s Election Watchroom Initiative, which provides coverage of candidates and the electoral process of the University of Ibadan Students’ Union (UI’SU).
