[rpd] [pdwg] Time to fix broken things in PDP

[Arnaud AMELINA]

This Was not meant for you as you can see from the introduction of the
message,  "dear Community and PDWG ".
There was unnoticed  error with the recipient  of the mail.

Arnaud

Le mer. 18 déc. 2019 à 13:09, ABDULKARIM AYOPO OLOYEDE <
oloyede.aa at unilorin.edu.ng> a écrit :


> Dear Arnuad and Alain,

>

>  We decided to address this repose to both of you because the piece was

> written by Alain and posted on the PDWG by Arnuad who happen to be a

> disciple of the later.

>

>   We first read the write up some few days ago and we decided not to

> respond initially because Alain is someone we have so much respect for and

> we felt we should spend our time in a more productive way. Secondly, in the

> African setting, we need to respect elders and sometimes even when they go

> wrong without causing too much damage, we tend to forgive them and just

> move on by keeping silent. This is because the younger ones sometimes have

> to tolerate the elders just the way a good mother tolerate her baby.

> However, after reflecting on this for some days and because it is now

> posted on the PDWG mailing by a “foot soldiers” hence, we decided to

> respond showing as much respect as we can.

>

> Firstly, we congratulate Mr Aina on his IETF trip and the Postel award.

> The ward comes at a time you need to start thinking of leaving a good

> legacy behind by encouraging younger ones to grow while teaching them some

> of the good qualities that would help them to win a similar award in future

> not just because they want diversity and give the award to an African but

> because the Africa man deserves the award. We also hope Mr Aina as an elder

> in this community would spend his time inspiring younger Africans to be

> involved in IETF that is currently dominated by older white men rather than

> this frivolous and untrue allegations just because he can’t get over the

> fact that young and vibrate individuals are now seeking to save the soul of

> AFRINIC while preventing it from being dominated by selfish individuals.

>

>  We do not know how the elder statesman who was just awarded what should

> be a prestigious award concluded that many participants did not read the

> proposals however we leave that as the level of engagement was glaring

> during the meetings. The level of participation at the meeting is something

> Mr Aina should be proud off if indeed he means well for this community.

> However, saying we (co-chairs) dined the floor unjustly to people is not

> only false but a reckless and mischievous statement that we do not expect

> from him. Do you expect that we allow everyone to talk as much as they want

> so that we can spend a year at the meeting? Mr Alain, with your experience

> from AFRINIC 1 in this community, we expect you to support us in making the

> community better not try to intimidate or harass us with a writeup full of

> falsehood. We should have spent this time preparing the minutes of the

> meeting rather we are spending productive time responding to your

> imaginations. The fiction you wrote is just a distraction.

>

> Again, please go and listen to the recordings, No one said the problem

> statement was meaningless. what was said is that the problem statement does

> not go into the CPM hence, it would not stop a proposal from going into the

> last call. AK was only seeking that clarification when discussions were

> about the problem statement while the community agree with the policy

> change itself but some objected to the problem statement. The reason for

> this is clear if objections are being raised about the problem statement

> then it can always be sorted out during the last call and clearly if it

> does not go into the CPM then we need to spend the limited time at the F2F

> meeting on what goes into the CPM and not the faulty problem statement.

> What response from the audience were you making reference too here “*The

> audience responded appropriate. I assume the lesson has been learnt by the

> author and the co-chairs*.” We hope you were not mixing up the policy

> meeting sessions with your “Johnathan B Postel Award” session.

>

>  You made what we termed as a  reckless allegation again “ *a participant

> raised the fact that based on some real intelligence there was a meeting

> held by the co-chairs with a selected set of the community to prepare on

> how to handle the meeting*” The allegation is not only false so is your

> account of what happened. The respected man who spoke at the mic said some

> people had a practice session the previous day but he never mentioned the

> fact that the co-chairs were in any way involved. He never also gave us any

> evidence or reason to investigate the allegation further. Come to think of

> it, if the allegation (as made during the session not your own account of

> it) is true, it should be something to be proud off as it shows the level

> of commitment and dedication by volunteers who are putting efforts into

> participating in the policy development process of AFRINIC.  It is clear in

> your own account of events that you are trying to manipulate events. How is

> it possible for us as co-chairs to prevent people or groups meeting to

> discuss the policies, is this against the CPM are you saying you never

> discussed the policies with anyone outside the room? If anything against

> the PDP occurred we would be happy to investigate and sanction as

> appropriate. Please give us a chance.

>

> We want to categorically say that we never had a practice session with a “*section

> of the community*”. The practice session we had was between us

> (co-chairs) and relevant AFRINIC staff. We had about two practise sessions

> to get us familiar with how to handle the meetings and to be able to manage

> the limited time well. We never discussed the policies in detail except for

> the agenda and how to make sure the sessions are not boring or allowing the

> individual with most policy speak all day without having some rest in

> between. We never discussed what should be the outcome of any policy as it

> was clear to all that the outcome depends on the community discussion on

> the mailing list and during the F2F meeting and we believe the practice

> session was in the best interest of the community and we thank the new CEO

> and AFRINIC staff for this initiative. This is clearly a good way to build

> capacity within the community.

>

>  Co-chairs are part of the community and we believe anyone from the

> community can come and talk/approach us or we can approach any member for

> advice and comments either in public or in private to guide our thought.

> This has no influence whatsoever on our decision-making process and we have

> tried to do this with elders and the younger generation in the community

> including yourself despite your hostility towards us on a number of

> occasions. We take decisions only based on what the community says to us

> both at the meeting and on the mailing list. Furthermore, the role of an

> elder (and in extension the co-chairs) within a community is to try and

> bring people together. If you have 2-3 proposals on the table trying to

> solve the same problem an elder should try and bring them together hence we

> are disappointed that someone who won the Postel award meant for someone

> who has made an outstanding contributions in service to the data

> communications community would say “*chairs attempted to convince the

> authors of the first two proposals discussed to merge... The exercise

> turned to a public disaster and showed that the prior meeting among the

> authors did not help*”. Let us be categorical, we can and ready to defend

> all our actions, inactions and decisions during the meeting as they were

> done in the best interest of the community.  We sent out emails to all

> authors on the transfer policies before the meeting asking authors to try

> and consolidate their proposal into one. Two groups of authors met, and

> they told us before the meeting that they reached some level of agreement

> and that your group refused to meet them, and we felt the best thing was to

> ask them how far they have gone during the meeting so that it would be an

> open process. What is wrong with this for Gods sake?

>

> Finally, please try and encourage the younger ones to grow and as an elder

> please spend your time mentoring younger ones and so not behave like

> typical African leaders who never want to retire rather, they want to

> dominate the scene forever. This is one of the major problems we face as

> Africans. When and If younger ones go wrong (no one is always right) please

> call them privately and advise them. According to a popular African

> saying “An elder cannot be in the market and a child‟s head will be

> allowed to droop”.

>

>  Thank you

>

> NB:  Generally speaking now: We need to make it clear to everyone in doubt

> that we both decided to contest elections in Kampala because we want to

> bring this community together while being directed by the community on the

> policies, we would continue to do our best for this community and ignore

> some of these side comments that we often get on the mailing list

> especially when they are coming from drowning individuals. We have ignored

> such comments in the past to avoid distractions. A word is enough for the

> wise.

>

>

>  PDWG Co-Chairs

>

> On Sat, Dec 14, 2019 at 4:49 PM Arnaud AMELINA via pdwg <pdwg at afrinic.net>

> wrote:

>

>> Hi Community and PDWG,

>>

>> It is time to come back to the story of Afrinic and understand what is

>> now happening to policy development in our region. Let us prepare our

>> future by fixing what we have found broken in Afrinic PDP. Here is a good

>> brief of the situation in a blog written by someone who attended Afrinic-1

>> [a]. It clearly shows that things are not going well with PDP in our

>> organization and need to be fixed....

>>

>>

>> [a] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/myafrinic-31-alain-aina

>>

>> Regards

>>

>> --

>> Arnaud

>> _______________________________________________

>> pdwg mailing list

>> pdwg at afrinic.net

>> https://lists.afrinic.net/mailman/listinfo/pdwg

>>

>

>

>

>

>

>

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>

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