Imo State NUJ Politics
By Francis Udoka Ndimkoha
Since Nigerian Union of Journalists in Imo state refused to report the fallout of their botched elections, let’s help them. They denigrate Social media guys a lot.
Facts have continued to emerged from the botched Imo NUJ elections, which rescheduled for Saturday, 14th July, 2018 after several postponements.
Following consideration or reversal of the disqualification of Mr. Lambert Ojukwu, one of the Chairmanship aspirants, who was earlier disqualified on the grounds of being a Publisher and at such, not eligible to NUJ, the stage was set for a showdown between supporters of Akaraonye and Ojukwu.
Eventually, on the day of the election, Ojukwu, who was banking on junior journalists who know next to nothing about NUJ politics, was faced with an odd option when he realized that the bulk of his supporters were not financially up to date, since they had not paid their CHECK UP dues. By not having a financial commitment to the organization, the lads were ineligible to exercise their franchise and the National was bent of fully observing the statutes.
The atmosphere was already heating up, owing to the obviousness of the defeat staring Ojukwu and his line up in the face, thus, most of the supporters decided to make the NUJ press centre, venue of the election, unconducive for the election. Meanwhile, Chris Akaraonye is reportedly being backed by senior Journalists, PROs and others.
It was at the height of this, that the National body, evidently compromised by setting up a Caretaker committee and postponing the election, once again.
This fate of Ojukwu of Imo NUJ and the Ojukwu (SAN) of NBA are much the same. Ojukwu is banking on young lawyers, who only lay claims to “I’ll vote for my teacher”, while most of them have not been verified for the election, setting the stage for Arthur Obi Okafor to sweep the stakes!
