The legendary Bob Marley in one of his popular songs said that there cannot be peace without Justice. His friend and contemporary, Peter Tosh, also reechoed that all humans need equal right and justice.
These reggae philosophers understood that justice and freedom, either in exercising a franchise or self determination are inalienable and basic tenants of man’s dignity, which if denied spurs spontaneous reaction which could come in the forms of protest or any other out of normal behaviour.
The above is the major issue in the Enugu state chapter of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) which has now, most unfortunately, infested its virus on Enugu State government that has nothing to do with the intractable crises which have mesmerized the union in the state for over a long period of time but gained prominence with the ascension to power of Mr. Christopher Isiguzo as the National President of NUJ.
Truly, even before Isiguzo climbed the ladder he had in many dimensions created disunity, fraudulently pauperized his colleagues and carried a baggage of certificate scandal on his shoulder. His emergence is still a subject of litigation at the industrial court in Abuja, but the emphasis here is that Isiguzo is the main cause of the NUJ problem in Enugu state.
One of the problems of NUJ is personalization of power and dictatorship. Once a figure emerges as President, even the custodian of the union, who is the Secretary-General of the union, becomes subservient to the President and whatever the president says becomes law despite the union’s constitution with its inadequacies.
It is such loophole that Isiguzo took advantage of and disqualified every other candidate that indicated interest to run for the February 2019 NUJ election in the state, leaving only few persons he adjourned as his friends. Danger signal was alerted to the then commissioner of Police, Danmallam Mohammed, who summoned all parties involved to his office on the February 8 2019 that Isiguzo insisted on rescheduling the election.
Whereas the Commissioner of Police made an appointment by 9 am in his office, before 7am, the Rex Arum group had flooded the social media with stories that they have conducted the election in defiance to the police peace moves. By 7:30am, Mr. Bamidele that came from Abuja to conduct the election was already on his way back to Abuja and even the NUJ Vice President for Zone C (South East), Mr. Petrus Obi, whose duty it was to conduct the election, did not even know what happed. Such was the sham that Isiguzo bequeathed on Enugu state and which resulted to the current NUJ impasse.
However, relying on Article 5 D, 9(c) which states that: “Where there is a stalemate in elections at the National Delegates’ Conference, the state council chairmen and Secretaries shall take over and run the affairs of the union and conduct fresh elections within three months. Same shall apply in case of a stalemate in the state council elections, where chapel chairmen and secretaries shall perform the same function,” the seven chapel chairmen and secretaries in Enugu NUJ held a meeting on February 20 2019 and adopted, at then, Sir Emeka Anyalebechi of FRCN as the caretaker committee chairman. Their communiqué was signed by six out of seven chapels in the state. A letter to this development was sent to the national secretariat of the union on February 21 2019 by the then State secretary, Mr. Oliver Ossai. (Please find attached documents for confirmation of a caretaker committee in Enugu state NUJ)
It now beats imagination for both the National secretariat of the NUJ to assume ignorance of an existing caretaker committee in the state, but went ahead to deal with Rex Arum who allegedly has no qualification and medium to be a journalist let alone NUJ chairman.
What the imposters resorted to was to blackmail the Enugu state government whom they always go cap-in-hand to, seeking for all manner of assistance, including the jinxed covid-19 palliatives. Early this year, Mr. Arum and his co-travelers threatened hell and brimstone against the state government for exercising its town planning regulation when it pulled down the illegal press center fence. Now in May, they are advertising that they rejected the government palliative when they requested for it in a letter.
At the Press Center, the Commissioner for Information, Nnanyelugo Chidi Aroh who was abreast with the Arum and co clandestine activities, said he came to give palliatives to journalists and not the union but Arum said no, that he must confiscate it as he did when the Baywood Ibe foundation gave similar palliatives. Aroh needed a list of journalists but Arum does not have it because he is not in possession of NUJ register and has kept saying that journalists were between 200 and 3000 in number.
Aroh who insisted that he was not interested in the union politics but to ensure that all journalists benefited from the magnanimity was therefore left with no option than to avert the mayhem that would have ensued if the items were handed over to any of the two factions.
The propaganda and blackmail that Arum and his travelers resorted to since after that is a clear insight on how he and his Abuja godfather regard the state government. It is however instructive to note that no amount of blackmail will make injustice and dictatorship triumph or suppress truth.
In the parlance of the proverbial Benin madman, “who go better, go better; na only tae wey e go tae.” Or in the Igbo proverb that admits that whoever lifts his hand up holding a child’s property, will lower his hand for the child to take back his property when his hand begins to strain him.
