Commonwealth: "it hurts real bad".

On 13 January this year, Professor Victor 0. Ayeni (below) wrote a memo to the Commonwealth secretary general, Don McKinnon, under the headline: Serious matters concerning the Secretariat and the Commonwealth. "As I write, I see a Commonwealth Secretariat that is relentlessly heading in the opposite direction of the dreams and ideals of the founding fathers," he told his boss. Below are extracts:

"This is a direct passionate plea to you. I have taken this rather unprecedented step to write this memo, having reached an absolutely intolerable state. Still, I am refraining from a formal complaint in order to facilitate a prompt termination and resolution of the situation presented below. I am confident that the situation at hand can, with unflinching will and the expertise available to us, be redeemed and turned around. This memo is for your eyes only and in strict confidence, but in the fervent hope that it will result in genuine positive actions.

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Highlights

Contrary to all expectations, harassment, discrimination and bullying are commonplace and routine in the Commonwealth Secretariat, making it an incredibly abusive and unhealthy environment. I will raise a few highlight issues only as I look forward to a further opportunity to go into greater details.

In my 30 years of working on these and related subjects, I have not encountered the level of contempt for rules and procedures and disregard for other human beings as I have experienced in the last few years in the Secretariat. Colleagues are ruthlessly sanctioned just because the secretary general is 'upset'. They are ridiculed and humiliated. There are the favoured colleagues who always seem to enjoy better conditions even more than those senior to them. Double standards are rife in many of the decisions and actions that affect staff. Integrity is an alien. It is beyond belief that so much wrong and misconduct can be perpetuated by those from whom so much is expected by the Commonwealth community.

The Sutherland Human Resource Handbook [the Commonwealth Staff Rules] which you approved and launched in April 2002, is uncompromising in its condemnation of such behaviour as an absolute negation of our collective commitment to the Commonwealth fundamental values to promoting human rights and equal rights for all. It emphasises that respect for all colleagues is of paramount importance and that behaviour which denigrates other members of staff is unacceptable.

Furthermore, the literature on these subjects is clear that [such] behaviour [does] not stand alone but [is] inevitably accompanied and reinforced by other forms of misconduct and maladministration. I will save, at this stage, the list of the other forms of serious misconduct, corruption and abuse of position that we have evidence of.

The immediate target of these various actions is broad, but there is a perception that colleagues from certain racial groups may be the more severely affected. Like in my case, targets have not just been colleagues at more junior levels. Recorded feedbacks from [my line manager] (name withheld by New African), for example, are suggestive of his own bullying experience. Sometime ago, [the head of the Human Resources Section] (name withheld by New African) hinted that you had told [my line manager] to resign if he wanted to pursue the concerns I had raised with him about certain experiences I was being subjected to under your instruction.

Similarly, perpetrators have emerged from all levels of staff. As the Sutherland Handbook probably thought, they have not always been middle-level line managers. Indeed, the most disturbing aspect of the current experience of the Secretariat is the audacious manner in which senior management and certain critical officers have perpetrated abuse and knowingly disregarded the provisions of the Sutherland Handbook.

They act like they are immune from sanction and free to inflict any form of pain on as many colleagues and as often as they please. They openly brandish the fact that they have authority from the highest level to do what they are doing. Those who dare to complain are threatened to take up the approved procedure, knowing fully well that such effort is fruitless. Naturally, most just do not bother.

In the circumstance, colleagues have generally resigned themselves to suffer in silence. They fear further persecution and humiliation. I have been a direct victim and understand that state of mind. In fact, a Secretariat officer is far more likely to be accused of one or more forms of misconduct if he or she is perceived to be in opposition to senior management. A lesser sentence is [for him or her] to be simply marginalised.

As outrageous as all these may sound, they are real, alive and consuming us all. What is more, these experiences amount to huge cost for the organisation. Among other things, they create distrust and fear and undermine team effort. They debilitate and discourage colleagues from functioning at their best. They dissipate and misdirect victims' valuable time and professional energy. In fact, studies have confirmed, which seem obviously true of the Secretariat as well, that victims tend to be highly competent people that any healthy organisation would otherwise value highly. All these amount to money lost to member countries. It is also very much a breach of the faith members have that people in charge will avail them the best that we, as an organisation, can offer.

Plea revisited

I started off with a plea to you--I will like to reiterate that as I turn to the next point and my own direct experience as a victim of bullying, discrimination and the harassment in the last two years and three months that I have been a director under you. My story is an incredible but absolutely intolerable one. Since 2003, I have struggled hard to remain confident and up to the task in order to wade off more damaging onslaught. I have borne the harm and pain gracefully because without that I would not have the evidence and the means to take the next step.

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I can confirm that a particularly humiliating aspect of the experience of these past years is that of taking the pain being inflicted just to survive. It hurts real bad. It is a degrading state of self-denial that is simply impossible to communicate to another person. At the same time, my previous meetings with you, one-to-one, to negotiate some reprieve punished me with further bullying experience. Even as I write, the bullying is continuing. However, I have now reached a point that I simply cannot take all of these any more.

I am hereby appealing to you to do everything in your power to stop yourself and all the colleagues through, and with, whom the vicious experience of bullying, discrimination and harassment has been perpetuated against me. Please stop now! As an employer, you have an obligation to provide a secure environment of work. I ask you to fulfil that obligation. Similarly, aware of the audacious nature of some previous attacks, I would also like to raise specifically possible concerns about the personal safety and security of myself and members of my family.

The calculated and relentless threat to my health and state of mind is nothing short of callous. It is as if I am not human but some mere 'disposable nappy'. My wife, Elizabeth, lives in this constant fear of a telephone call from my work advising her that I have suffered a stroke as a result of the stress I have been subjected to. According to the Sutherland Handbook, there is no justification whatsoever for what I have gone through under your direct instruction ...

I recall that your public statement on the 2005 International Human Rights Day was a condemnation of the fact that any human being could be made to suffer any form of violence and torture ... I find it difficult to understand what would have warranted what I have been subjected to. Have we not done our job as required and achieved for the organisation? Is it because I am black and African? Or because I am 'outspoken'? Or because I have sometimes openly insisted on us sticking to established principles and procedures? Or does it have to do with the fact that I am Nigerian, people you joked about at a recent function as 'always seeking to steal what is not theirs'? I really feel that some answer to this fundamental concern will assist my healing process. Why, I ask.

I have been subjected to every imaginable form of bullying and harassment. First it looked as if I was just dealing with a boss who would not accept that he is wrong. But as the experience grew more relentless, brutal and desperate, it became clear that this was far from the case. I am discriminated against by senior management. It will be interesting to do a count of how frequently I am discussed by you and other colleagues. I have been framed, presented as incompetent and subjected to relentless stress ... From day one, you worked on an agenda to present me as incompetent and undeserving. As a result, I have had to constantly fight off efforts to sabotage my work and programmes. When not doing that, I am forced to face the humiliation of my achievements being passed on to others to claim the glory. Subordinate staff have been sponsored to fabricate allegations so that you can have a ground to act against me. If I am not the target, then it is members of my team since, presumably, that will make it harder for me to manage. Needless to say, my repeated complaints about these conducts are brushed aside with contempt. It is as if anything done to or against my interest simply does not matter ...

As I have asked [my line manager] several times in the past, I wonder if senior management adopts in my case a different set of Human Resource rules from those contained in the Sutherland Handbook. That Handbook expressly requires the line manager to ensure that his or her staff is not subjected to bullying and discriminatory experience. [My line manager's] response to the situation I have described has been the direct opposite. How does he freely get away with this? Initially, he simply looked the other way to avoid being seen as involved, often lamenting his fear not to confront the secretary general. After all, he too had sometimes been openly disgraced. On one occasion he even suggested that I could consider resigning since 'it seemed foolish to stay on in a place where you were not wanted'. He never broached this idea again on perceiving my utter disbelief at the thought. He became openly an accomplice and a bully in his own right, often hiding under that banner to secure advantages that he could not have gained otherwise. My bullying experience in the Secretariat is, therefore, very much a direct consequence of the failure of my line manager. I submit this concern to you for your necessary action.

Way forward

I have written the foregoing not just as an employee of the Secretariat but also in my role as your director of governance ... As I write, I see a Commonwealth Secretariat that is relentlessly heading in the opposite direction of the dreams and ideals of the founding fathers. It is evident from a careful study of all the enabling and supporting documents on the Secretariat that our heads of governments envisaged that the Commonwealth secretary general would personify the values and ideals of the association, and using that authority, he would be in a position to assist member countries and the world at large to institutionalise those abiding values ...

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It seems obvious that we have an extremely serious situation in our hands; one that is almost certain to inflict irreparable damage no t just on the office of the secretary general but the entire Commonwealth association. Knowing that the image of the Secretariat and the Commonwealth is one of your key priorities, it is my hope that you will see and act on this memo to you as further constructive effort towards achieving that objective.

Our division, as you know, has among its primary responsibilities to assist member governments in this regard and has built an international track record of work. Isn't it ironic that my colleagues and I would also be such obvious victims of the sort of disregard of Commonwealth fundamental values outlined above?

The moral and legal argument about the possible response to all that has been said here is obvious ... No employer has any excuse for such systematic and persistent actions against its employees. We are in an age where the international community simply does not have any more stomach for those who violate the rights of others freely.

Abuses in the form that I have outlined are a clear breach of the employee's trust and confidence in the employer. By the same token, an employer loses its right to that characterisation when it knowingly and deliberately engages in even a fraction of what we have outlined here. It can also not expect the international, and in our case the Commonwealth community, to disregard actions that may well be construed as a direct threat to public safety and security ...

It is inconceivable that governments and member countries would expect the secretary general and staff to stop short of any measures to redress and correct the situation that I have outlined above. Having seen the benefits the Commonwealth is able to offer to the ordinary citizens of the Commonwealth, particularly in regard to the experience I have been going through, I am convinced that no price is too much to pay in the current circumstance.

You have my personal assurance that I intend to do whatever is required to take us to a better future ... I call on you to use your good office to secure concrete actions along those [lines], I earnestly appeal to you to help me and other colleagues who have suffered, to heal and recover. I look forward to meeting with you again soon to discuss further the way forward to this memo. Thank you."