Page 16 - IB Dec 2020

Pacific People of the Year

NAURU’S YOUNG GUN

By Samisoni Pareti plagued the previous administration of
Vice Chancellor Rajesh Chandra of Fiji,”
Nauruan Lionel Aingimea is our leader a senior academic told Islands Business.
of the year. “Professor Ahluwalia’s confidential
The Nauruan leader’s unwavering de- report about questionable financial
termination, grit, and a burning desire management and senior staff appoint-
to save the USP earned him respect and ments only confirmed what Aingimea
accolades this year. and many others had known all along.
While University of the South Pacific “So when he assumed the role of
vice chancellor Professor Pal Ahluwalia USP Chancellor around June/July this
is credited with exposing the rot in the year, President Aingimea took it upon
regional institute of learning, it is his himself to resolve once and for all the
incoming chancellor that made sure leadership saga between Fiji’s Winston
that the vice chancellor kept his job Thompson/Mahmood Khan and Professor
this year. Ahluwalia.”
Many other leaders would have shied It is no secret that behind the two
away from the crisis that gripped senior Fiji representatives in the USP
the university leadership. Not Lionel Council with Thompson as Council chair,
Aingimea though. He took, as it were, was Fiji’s powerful Attorney General
the bulls by the horn, and as President Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum. Staff and students
of Nauru and new Chancellor of the uni- at the Laucala Bay Campus of USP would
versity, convened at least three special Meetings of the Council are never sight the AG’s official vehicle outside
USP Council virtual meetings to obtain open to non-members. But Council Thompson’s office on more than one
consensus that paved the way for reso- members the magazine consulted for occasion. Khaiyum attended at least
lution of the year-long impasse. this article talk of the respectful but de- two Council meetings in place of his
For his efforts to bring all parties to cisive leadership displayed by Aingimea permanent secretary, where he, sources
the negotiating table, take on what as he brokered the way forward. While said, forcefully pushed for the sacking
some say were the bullying and con- some members would lose their tem- of Ahluwalia.
descending tactics of Fiji’s representa- per—raising voices and pointing fin- However the numbers were not
tives in the council while doing so, and gers—the young Nauruan leader steered with him, but with President Aingimea
ensuring Council members hammered the discussions firmly and calmly, via instead. It was Aingimea’s visage, not
out a consensus on the way forward teleconferencing, for COVID-19 induced Khaiyum’s that was zoomed to the
for USP, Nauru’s President is without a lockdowns made face- to-face meetings white wall of the university’s Japan-ICT
doubt, Islands Business’ Pacific Leader impossible. conference room whenever the Council
for 2020. Those close to the President identi- met virtually. He steered the discus-
This was no easy feat. The odds it fied three key factors that guided and sions; he made the final call.
seems were stacked up against him. helped the Nauru leader throughout the For standing up to Fiji’s intimidat-
Aingimea was young, and new, while his USP saga. One was the fact that he is an ing and heavy-handed tactics, unafraid
opponents were seasoned administra- alumnus of USP, so there was no need of the repercussions this may cause
tors, some of whom had been working to convince him of the crucial role the his small island state, President Lionel
long before the young Nauru lawyer university plays in the development of Aingimea saved VC Ahluwalia to save
joined his country’s civil service. the region. USP. At a time when the people of the
Yet, if Aingimea was daunted by this, The second factor was that Aingimea Pacific looked for decisive and bold
he did not show it. Instead, just 10 not only studied at the Suva campus, leadership from their elected leaders,
months into office, he sent his first let- but he also worked there as a lecturer this Nauru politician delivered. To this,
ter to the USP Council. It was to be the in the university’s Law School. the islands owe him a huge debt of
first of many letters he had to write to “Having taught at Laucala Bay cam- gratitude and appreciation.
push back wave after wave of attempts pus for a number of years, President
by Fiji and its representatives to over- Aingimea was aware of a number of publisher@islandsbusiness.com
rule the Council and remove Ahluwalia. academic and management issues that

16 Islands Business, December 2020