The titanic battle to save NUJ

BY GABRIEL OMONHINMIN

From Thursday 26th to Saturday 28th March 2009, journalists from across Nigeria, would once again gather in the nation’s capital Abuja, for the 3rd triennial delegates conference of our great union. At this gathering which comes up every three years, the union is expected to elect new set officers to run its affairs.

If things had been going well with the union at the national level, one would not have been too worried about the calibre of person or persons that might emerge as our national officials come March.

But saddly for sometimes now, the Nigerian Union of Journalists, seems to be bedeviled with bad leadership. We therefore owe it a duty to help re-focus and re-position the NUJ. This is a duty every journalist in Nigeria retired or serving owe the union, at this particular point in time.

I am worried, because people who had no set of ideas on how to run a union like the NUJ are attempting to take over the union once again. In the past they had used whatever was left of the NUJ’s image to feather their own nest. One is therefore not surprised, that they are at it again. They are despirate to hijack our union. Are we all going to fold our arms and watch them do what they like with the NUJ? I think we should collectively say not to this despiration.

In an open society such as ours, credibility is an essential attribute of a journalistic organization. The credibility of the organization and that of its journalists are inter-linked. Credibility is dependent not only on factors such as accuracy and truthfulness in reporting and presentation but upon avoidance by the journalits of associations or contacts which could reasonably give rise to perceptions of partiality. We are today at cross roads, because the tenet of our profession is easily defiled by our supposed leaders. Any suprise that the society we are expected to serve, no longer takes us seriously in matters affecting our nation. NUJ problem had always been orchestrated by poor leadership. Our union is about to be run aground. We must all do something about it. That is the way forward.

Let me state very clear, that in the one hundred and forty-six years of journalism practice in Nigeria, and the fifty years since the existence of our great union the Nigerian Union of Journalists, the depressing state of affairs in the NUJ is far from what was conceived at inception. And while similar journalists bodies in other countries especially Africa, are still unsatisfied with where they are and are continually pressing forward under immense pressures from members, our union at the national level is moving back or at best at a stand still. This situation must not be allowed to continue.

The Nigerian Bar Association, (NBA) and the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) just to mention a few, are as relevant in the scheme of things nationally, due to quality leadership. The body of benchers and consultants would not fold their arms and allow their juniors in practice to do what they like with their union. We must take a cue from these bodies.

Walter Lippmann, the American political columnist, once said, “the fate of men will be decided in the long run by restless thinkers who are not afraid to stand up and ask some partinent questions if and when they arise”.

My question therefore is what does distingushed Senator Smart Adeyemi want from the NUJ. Why does he think willy nilly, he must foist a leader on the union, members like it or not? Are Nigerian journalists too docile, no longer intelligent enough to chose whosoever they want as a leader? These and many more questions are begging for answers. I think it is wrong and most unkind to the profession that threw Senator Adeyemi up and gave him the platform to be what he is today, for him to be quoted as saying that he is “the Adedibu of the Nigerian Union of Journalists”. He must now be told that the NUJ is not Ibadan, and that journalists in the country are not ready for any kind of Adedibu. Journalists should simply be allowed this time around to make their choice.

Another question I would want Senator Adeyemi to respond to, is why he is not keeping faith, and tends to pay past favours with unkindness?

I could re-call that in his quest to become the National President of the NUJ, Senator Adeyemi made several trips to the Lagos Council begging the likes of Ladi Lawal and Funke Fadugba to support him. At the Minna delegate conferecne in 1999 when things became really hot up, the then outgoing President of the union Mr. Lanre Ogundipe, forsaw defeat and summoned a meeting where he addressed the “New Trend” a group made up of member of the Lagos Council of the NUJ who had the ace to Adeyemi’s emergence as the NUJ President. At that meeting a very sad Ogundipe said, “I might today not be the candidate you would want to elect as President, but in all honesty, Smart Adeyemi as he was then called, is not a better option for the union, Please if you would not return me as President my deputy Vincent Ake is a better option”.

Before Ogundipe could finish with his statment Mrs. Funke Fadugba, who was then the Chairperson of the Lagos Council of the NUJ got up and told Ogundipe that, “Members of the Lagos Council have made up their mind on who to elect as President of our union. It is Smart Adeyemi” she said. We all assumed then, that Adeyemi was the best among all the other contestants”. Exprience six years after shows to us that Ogundipe was right and we were all wrong. Lanre please forgive us.

To further shed light on the type of character our distingushed Senator is made of, I am forced to reproduce a recent text message Mrs. Fadugba sent to Senator Adeyemi. This text was forwarded to my phone by a very senor journalist who got it. Mrs. Fadugba, I was told on enquiry resolved as a mark of respect, to send the text to our distingushed Senator after due consultation with very senior members and stakeholders of our profession. And the text reads as follows: “My dear distingushed Senator. I wish to make this passionate and final plea to you to please remember the very small good things I have done to you. Close your eyes to the countable bad ones. I swear to God that if I emerge as NUJ President, I will do nothing to rubbish my predecessors including you. It is a pledge. Please don’ t stand on my way God will not stand on your way and your children will find favour. Look at me with passion. Thank you. Fadugba”.
Typical of our former President, and in a deliberate effort to score cheap point as usual, our distingushed Senator decided to forward the above text sent to him in strict confidence to some other journalists who are not too familiar with his antics, saying that he was been begged by Mrs. Fadugba as an Adedibu who can make and un-make any candidate who aspires to the presidency of the NUJ. He has easily forgotten that he went round the country begging journalists to vote him as NUJ president before the 1999 Minna convention. I wonder why some men in high offices can betray confidentality.

At the 2nd Triennial National Delegates’ Conference in Port Harcourt, in a speech entitled “Stewardship Report of the out-going National President of NUJ Prince Smart Adeyemi, our distingushed Senator told Nigerian journalists then, that in six years as President of the NUJ, his executive, managed to achieve what he called a) Image Laundering, b) Empowerment, c) Audited Account, and d) Constitutional Amendements, what however, drew my attention in that speech, is the area in which he said, “A major problem we encountered was the take-over of our Secretariat by the Federal Capital Ministry as part of the on-going Reforms”. The National Secretiat which was taken over almost at the end of the Senator’s tenure, was the only source of revenue, for the union at the national level, the International Institute of Journalism (IIJ) was also housed within that premises. Mr. Adeyemi left no single vehicle for the Ndagene Aku’s administration which took over from him. He failed to tell journalists the true position of the union’s account when he was leaving office. It was later found that he left behind a whopping debt of about eighty million naira for the union, and a pittance sum of one hundred and twenty thounsand Naira in the National NUJ’s account.

He also told journalists at that delegates’ conference, that “hope is not lost as the proceeds of the N.U.J. Golden Jubilee anniversary organised during his tenure, was to be commited towards a new National Seretariat. Saying, that was why his administration organize the 50th Anniversary Dinner despite all odds”. Hum!, Distingushed Senator where is the proceeds from this Anniversary Dinner and where is the NUJ land your administration left behind in Abuja. Is anybody surprise, as to the reason(s) why the incumbent President of the NUJ Ndegene Akwu who was installed by Senator Adeyemi, no longer see face to face with our most cherished senator? In spite of these mess, our senator made sure he got ten million naira, as part payment of what he said the union was owning him, even though he left office without a hand over note, seven months salary arrears of staff of the National Secretariat which has now been cleared.

Garba Mohammed is a fine gentleman, if he genuinely wishes to lead our union, he should be seen to be a man of his own. I asked him during his recent campaign visit to Lagos Council whether he was a stooge to Senator Adeyemi as now being alleged. He however agreed, that Senator Adeyemi alongside other President of the union were all supporting him.The other ex-leader of the NUJ who is supporting Garba at the moment, is simply an undertaker who is doing any thining and every thing possible to bury the NUJ and Guild of Editors. He holds everybody responsible for his defeat at the Ibadan delegate conference. Well! An Esan axiom say “when two persons are deceiving themselves, there is hadly any query in such relationship”. I wish him luck.

Wahab Oba is my friend. He has a lot of future as far as NUJ politics is concerned, but his sudden interest in the national office of our union, makes lot of members to be surpecious of his exact intentions.

As far as I am concerned this race is between Mrs. Olufuke Fadugba and Ndagene the son of Akwu, the incumbent President of our union, the tenures of either of these candidates would not favour our distingushed Senator hence the bitter fight. My last question, is why does Smart want to be at the National Assembly and at the same time wield considerable influence in NUJ’s matters? The truth we must all tell Senator Adeyemi now, is simple “ It is true that a person who has people is better off than a person who has money. His wish and desire must not succeed.

Gabriel Omonhinmin works with Voice of Nigeria, 08057908494