ENUGU—THE Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Enugu State Council is now engulfed in crisis following the alleged interference in the affairs of the Correspondents’ Chapel and other unwholesome activities of the leadership of the state council capable of tarnishing the image of the union in the state. The leadership of the union led by Mr. Louis Dilibe had attempted to forcefully dissolve the executive of the Correspondents’ Chapel but this was stiffly opposed by majority of the members who insisted that the tenure of their current executive led by Mr. Jude Ossai of Nigerian Tribune Newspapers had neither expired nor been dissolved according to the NUJ constitution. The NUJ leadership, apparently determined to impose a leadership on the chapel, refused to work in line with the provision of the union’s constitution on the matter and took some members of the chapel to a hideout in Enugu last Wednesday for a purported election of new executive for the chapel, without the participation of the core members of the chapel, including correspondents from all the national newspapers and magazines.
National Vice President of the union in-charge of Zone C, Mr. Chukwudi Achife, whose attention was drawn to the development at the weekend, described the purported election of a new executive for the chapel under the supervision of the state council as a nullity, adding that it was intended to forment trouble among members of the chapel.
A statement issued by the Zonal President in Enugu reads: “My attention has been drawn to an exercise carried out on September 29, 2004 by some members of the Correspondents’ Chapel of the Enugu State Council of the union, which they purported to be an election of a new executive of the chapel.
“I am aware that the term of the current executive of the chapel led by Mr. Jude Ossai of the Tribune Newspapers has not expired nor has the executive resigned, been dissolved or otherwise legitimately removed. The exercise that was purported to be an election is therefore illegal as far as NUJ is concerned and all decisions reached therein are null, void and of no effect or consequence whatsoever on the composition and tenure of the current executive of the chapel.
“The intentions of those who organized and participated in that exercise are not only totally at variance and manifestly inconsistent with the provisions of the NUJ constitution, as they relate to elections, but must have been designed to forment trouble within the Correspondents’ Chapel, the State Council and the Union in general.
