That Comrade Festus Alenkhe, Chairman of the Edo State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), has done well in his less than one year in office is not in doubt. Commendation for his milestone achievements is coming in torrents from all and sundry. Very unique about his work rate is the fact that in less than one year he has done close to 95 percent what he promised to do within his three year tenure.
Threatening his laudable achievements is the behaviour of some misfits that encompass him. And it is no joking matter.
In the early days of the campaign to install him knowing that he will change the narrative for the better for journalists in the state the number of those who stood to be counted with him, that’s those that openly identified with him was countable.
Yours sincerely recall that when an outfit was going to do an opinion poll on who may likely emerge the winner of the poll slated for Friday, December 17th, 2021 and a call was put through to some of these later day vote Alenkhe for Chairman the response was very damning, not encouraging at all.
One of such new Alenkhe supporters who we heard was even talking of either doing a void vote instead of voting for him shouted “which yeye Alenkhe are you telling me I should vote for? Are you the one to tell me who to cast my vote for?”
Fast forward to the day the Festus Alenkhe team had an engagement with a reputable lawyer and this anti Alenkhe lady was smuggled into the vehicle conveying the team to the office of the lawyer by her kinsman after a lengthy ‘parapo’ discussion.
Now such a fellow is part of the group who now constitute themselves to my people before any other in the typical EMILOKAN format. These set of people now give tribal colouration to anything that the hardworking Alenkhe and his colleagues in the NUJ Exco are able to attract to the Council.
It is not unusual to hear such misfits start imputing that the members of their tribal group should have the lion share of any such benefits as they have been marginalised in the scheme of things in the times past. Whatever they are insinuating by so saying.
Just recently the three year tenure of the NAWOJ (Nigeria Association of Women Journalists) team led by Adesuwa Ehimuan was coming to a close and there was a call for interested members who are qualified in line with the NUJ constitution to apply for any of the vacant positions.
In a short while the applications started flooding in. And in line with the process the Committee saddled with the responsibility of screening the applicants to determine their qualification for the positions they seek to occupy with inputs from the national body of the union came up with its findings that some of them did not meet the requirements.
Since then all hell has been let loose as the market woman amongst the lot has taken it upon herself that she was cheated out of the race.
For the sake of those who are not in the know of what the Committee came up with I will quote a relevant part of its submission.
“From the documents forwarded by the Credentials Committee to the National Secretariat, it was observed that all the three aspirants for the position of Chairperson have professional qualification of National Diploma or Post Graduate Diploma in Journalism, respectively.
“However, the documents revealed that one of the aspirants, Rosemary Okoduwa, was employed as photo journalist with Merit Newspaper in 2003. She holds a NECO certificate of 2010, SSCE of 2010 and the National Diploma of 2017 from the International Institute of Journatiem (11J).
“The National Secretariat observed discrepancies in the credentials as the aspirant worked for seven years with Merit Newspaper before obtaining the NECO/SSCE Certificate.
“Furthermore, judging from August 2017 when she obtained her National Diploma, it is evident that she has not practiced as a professional journalist for seven (7) years, which is required of anyone aspiring for the office of state chairperson. Article 6(7b) is clear on that. She is therefore not cleared to contest,” so said the Committee which acted on the basis of a congent petition it received from a member of NAWOJ.
Since this emerged the lady, in her usual way, has being acting like a buffoon charging at everybody she accuses of not supporting her. She has gone as far as blackmailing the NUJ national body led by Chief Chris Isiguzo, its National President; Comrade Festus Alenkhe, the Chairman of the State Council of the NUJ and the NAWOJ national officials among many others.
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