INDOMIE, GOAT AND BOOZE: THE POLITICS OF NUESA-UNIUYO

I am one of those fed up with folks bitching about the non- performance of their elected leaders. Every time I hear that a leader is messing up, I ask the folks, “did ghosts elect those leaders or did God impose them by his sovereign will?”

            A leadership structure will never be greater than its electorate. If the electorate is illiterate, the leaders will also be illiterate, if they are thugs, then their leaders will most likely follow suit. Leadership is like a mirror from where you can see the character, behavior, and thinking patterns of the electorate. Of course there are exceptions to this, but they remain exceptions.

I observed the last NUESA-UNIUYO presidential elections with keen interest and attention. Two candidates, John John Akpan and Aniefiok “Alloy” Eshiet ran against each other. Both were incidentally from the same Mechanical Engineering Department so the issue of voting by departmental lines did not come up. John John was the quiet, soft spoken candidate who always would begin every statement with “I believe in one thing…” And the ‘one thing’ was plenty! On the other hand, Alloy was the one who would state grand dreams and visions that always reminded me of a presidential candidate in a certain African country who promised to give each family a donkey and a bicycle if he was ever elected. Alloy would tell you about how he was going to hold the school to ransom till the Engineering Library was upgraded and Engineering students were given grants.

The campaigns were as usual accompainied by colorful fanfare and ‘consultations’. Consultations often involved cartons of ‘Indomie’ and bottles of >=40% alcohol content. For the smokers, a packet of cigarettes or some wraps of marijuana were their own consultation. In the case of the hostel community, two goats had to be added to the mix in order to appease the god of ‘sype’, at least for that weekend.

After all said and done, John John defeated Alloy by a margin of 6 votes to emerge faculty president, taking over the reins of power from Patrick Imoh. But recently, I have seen and heard a lot of criticism directed at the John John. Many accuse him of exhibiting a weak leadership style and not confronting students’ issues with the right level of aggression needed for such advocacy. But you have to give it to John John, the young man has helped build the new ‘love’ benches outside the hostels and I am sure he has also been also been fulfilling what is arguably the most important duty of a Student Leader which is advocacy. I recall an incident where my colleague misbehaved and was promptly sent out of a test hall, it was John John who got to the lecturer to grant him amnesty.

But then those who say John John has not performed point to issues like the unpublished Flexibility magazine, the faculty night yet to hold and the continued ‘oppression’ of students by academic and non-academic staff. From the bitter nature of the complaints, you would be forgiven for thinking John John and his administration committed murder. Everything is blamed on John John , even the fact that Eka Sammy now sells food for N120!

As far as I am concerned, John John has already performed. He performed when the day I was given my own share of the Indomie, he performed when the Goat-Killing Committee gave me my own share of the slaughtered animal. I believe all those who washed down the goat meat and Indomie with the 40% alcohol content should stop complaining. We, all of us had collected our own share of the ‘performance’ during the campaign season.

Forgive me if I sound cynical, but we have to tell ourselves the truth. By the time a candidate spends N100,000 during a faculty election cycle, wouldn’t you expect him to recoup his ‘investment’ with profit? Spending huge amounts of money during election is not charity, it is investment and when we come to see it that way, we’ll start making progress.

But then there is the genuine question of how the candidates are expected to run successful campaigns without ‘investing’ so much of their personal funds. I believe that the time of ‘no goat, no vote’ is in the past. While goats have been a constant feature of school elections, debates and well thought out manifestoes have not. We keep complaining about the high cost of running government in Nigeria but we never seem to see the high cost of running a faculty election cycle. The high cost of government is one of the main reasons Nigeria is in such a mess at the moment, I mean just imagine a commission spending N1.2 million on ‘opening a Facebook page’.

I believe the change we seek in Nigeria must begin individually in all of us and then spread to our environment and spheres of influence. While like Prof. Chinua Achebe, I also believe that the problem of Nigeria is leadership, it must also be stated that the leaders are neither ghosts nor spirits, but are humans who at one point or the other were followers. So let’s take a cue from the American system and instead of ‘taxing’ people running for office dry, let’s contribute and push them towards success. President Barack Obama, in his victory speech, said that his election victory was caused by regular folks who donated $5, $10, $20 to fund his campaign.

So the next time you feel like criticizing John John’s administration, remember the bottles of booze, the packs of indomie plus the consultation goat and just shut up!

                                                                        Gypsy (@gypsy_C9) writes from Uyo.

Turning Old Photos yo GIFs

GIF made with the NYPL Labs Stereogranimator
The New York Public Library wants you to turn its archive of 40,000 historic stereographs into 3D images and animated GIF files.
The NYPL launched a feature Thursday called the Stereogranimator, which allows users creative access to its collection of stereographs, a popular photo format from the 19th century in which two pictures were placed side by side to create a 3-D effect.
“For nearly a century, stereographs were the cutting edge of 3D entertainment, but their flat, doubled surfaces give little indication of the thrill they once held for millions,” Ben Vershbow, manager of NYPL Labs, told Mashable.
“Meanwhile, GIF animations were a staple of the early web, and continue to pop up in viral media streams in surprising and increasingly innovative ways. The prospect of mashing up 19th century photography with 1990s Internet folk art seemed an opportunity too weird and wonderful to pass up.”
The concept of turning vintage stereographs into animated gifs began several years ago when San Francisco-based artist and writer Joshua Heineman started creating his own from the NYPL’s collection and uploaded them to his blog.
His site went viral, with as many 70,000 visitors a day flocking to check out his 3-D animations, according to an article he wrote for The Huffington Post.
“I didn’t ask permission. I didn’t think to ask, being under a spell of wide-eyed discovery at the time and not expecting anyone to notice,” Heineman said. “This is the sort of behavior that has led to cease-and-desist letters and lawsuits in recent years.
“Instead, the library seemed invigorated by the creative re-use, pointing to my project in media and in seminars as an example of a way forward for heritage institutions in the all-access jungle of modern technology.”
NYPL Labs — a department that focuses on technology and user collaboration — decided to create a way for all web users to have the same interaction and engagement with its stereograph collection. For those who want to create 3-D images, 3-D glasses are needed.
“[Heineman's project] opened up these images to new audiences,” Vershbow said. “It provided us with a compelling example of the great things that can happen when we release digital collections into the open web.”
Vershbow noted that NYPL has conducted extensive user surveys that provide strong evidence of an increased appetite for deeper collaboration in library initiatives and services.
“At the end of the day, we were operating on a hunch that the inherent appeal of the collection — plus the ability to quickly and easily participate and share the fruits of this bite-sized labor through online social networks — would be compelling to our users,” he added.
“Judging by the intense interest in our first day, I’d say we were on to something.”

Image courtesy of NYPL.

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