WISDOM: HIGHEST CODE ALERT IN THESE TIMES FOR GAMLS.
5 At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon during the night in a dream, and God said, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.”
1 Kings 3:5-12 (NIV)
6 Solomon answered, “You have shown great kindness to your servant, my father David, because he was faithful to you and righteous and upright in heart. You have continued this great kindness to him and have given him a son to sit on his throne this very day.
7 “Now, Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David. But I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. 8 Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number. 9 So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?”
10 The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. 11 So God said to him, “Since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have asked for the death of your enemies but for discernment in administering justice, 12 I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be.
GAMLS Annual National Congress 2020 is finally here, after a sizable uncertainty about its organisation due to the COVID-19. To that we doff our hats to GAMLS leadership as well as the Western Regional LOC for a job well done.
The General Assembly (GA), commonly know as “Congress” has the unique identity of being the flagship decision making organ of GAMLS. It means every decision made by delegates will remain binding for the foreseeable future. Invariably, non-participants are as much as possible expected to ‘advise’ their representatives to make right decisions on any motion tabled at the GA.
This year’s GA is an electoral one and therefore after all the ongoing fantastic campaign activities from the various aspirants, the day of reckoning will finally dawn on them whereby they will be endorsed or rejected according to the laid down rules and structures of the GAMLS Constitution. It is in this light of our constitutional provisions that we are all whipped in line to vote as delegates in good professional standing. ‘Unfortunately’ there is NO OTHER WAY outside of our Constitution for members in good standing to vote apart from participating in the GA, whether physically or virtual partcipation.
Very recent calls for an ‘all-inclusive’ voting right for members in good standing whether he or she is at GA or not, are therefore misplaced, no matter how well-meaning the advocates for such calls are.
We are bound by rule of law as a professional bodyand as it stands now, our EC derives powers to execute their mandate from our Constitution, whose interpretation is unambiguous about who has the right to vote or not.
Subject to any amendments of the present Article 7.1.b provisions of our Constitution in which “The EC shall work with the modalities to effect the voting by all members in good standing”, we do not have any choice than to obey the EC as they referee the process of voting of our national officers. Yeah!
Apart from rolling out efforts at fulfilling his campaign promises, the newly elected GAMLS President has to immediately take giant steps at reconciling members high or low, who feel hurt in one way or the other, in order to foster development in freedom. He will need WISDOM to navigate his way, as demanded of the Lord by King Solomon in my scriptural reference above.
I dare say that our outgoing President Dr Ignatius Awinibuno is arguably the most vilified leader of GAMLS. This has been largely facilitated by social media trends of our times whereby some members ‘hide behind’ WhatsApp and rain pure insults for his ‘sins’. Our Financial Secretary and PRO have not been spared either. We have seen our President, Ag GS and former President ‘Grandpa’ Tom Gyampoma exit some key GAMLS WhatsApp pages in bitterness just a few days ago.
Nobody is saying leaders are immune to criticism but we must learn to do so out of sheer respect even if our leaders are the most guilty criminals. The practice whereby relatively younger members choose to denigrate them at the least opportunity on social media, is simply untenable. We need to channel more of such energy at out professional oppressors than to ourselves!
Though the writer will not be physically present at this year’s GA, he will be monitoring things virtually and wishes all the aspirants well as they steer affairs into our 50th anniversary next year, as a legally registered professional body.
THERE ARE BRIGHTER DAYS AHEAD!
MLS EMMANUEL TOBOH (Manny) writes…
13/10/2020