Correspondents’ Election: Journalists Protest Against Disqualification, Exclusion Of Names, Want National NUJ To intervene

Oyo state correspondent for DAILY POST newspaper, Mr. Musliudeen Adebayo has kicked against what he described as illegal disqualification of his candidature in the election of Correspondent’s chapel in the state.

It was gathered that Adebayo had earlier urged the state council of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) to disband the electoral committee over lack of confidence in the committee.

Adebayo urged the NUJ to stop the election over irregularities.

According to his petition to NUJ, “I Musliudeen Adebayo, Oyo State correspondent for DAILY POST shown interest to contest the position of Assistant Secretary of the chapel. I attended the chapel membership screening and the election screening committees. But, to my surprise, the Credential Committee decided to disqualify me claiming that I failed to present letter of appointment.

“Let me inform you that my employment letter was presented and the chairman of the committee, Sola Adeyemo called my editor who confirmed that he was the one who issued the letter in 2017.

“The NUJ should as a matter of fact disband the Credential Committee for the lack of credibility. NUJ should wade in and ensure that only practicing and qualified people are allowed to vote and be voted for”.

But according to him, the embattled electoral committee went ahead to conduct the election on Tuesday despite several petitions written by Adebayo and other members of the union who were disenfranchised.

The committee conducted the election with the aid of some operatives of Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps (NSCDC) who went to the venue to intimidate members.

It was gathered that the two NSCDC officials led by one Mr. Ojo acted without the consent of the state command.

The two officials who drove a Toyota Camry car with registration number NRK 297 PM were used to harass and intimidate some members of the union who protested against the election.

Some other members of the union who were disenfranchised to vote included Seye Olumide of Guardian, Kazeem Awojoodu of Daily Independent, Dapo Salami of Vision Update and John Teidi of OGBC.

Salami who spoke on behalf of the disenfranchised members stated that the list of eligible voters was released by the NUJ and Credential Committee barely 12 hours to the election, which his name and others were missing.

He added that some people were fraudulently included in the voters list.

Salami said, “Some people who are not eligible to vote because they do not have medium but impersonating some medium were included in the voting list. All the petitions forwarded to NUJ on the impersonation of some members were left unattended to by the leadership of NUJ.

“In the voting list released by both NUJ and credential committee, one Ola Ajayi who was no more working with Vanguard is using the name of the organisation to vote in the election.

“Aside Ola Ajayi, there are others who have no medium at all but despite petitions written against their eligibility, the Oyo NUJ went ahead to include them in the voting list while authentic correspondent of the Guardian Newspapers, Seye Olumide, Daily Independent reporter, Kazeem Awojodu, Vision Update Correspondent, Dapo Salami and OGBC Correspondent John Teidi, were not included in the voting list.

“All these complain were reported to the leadership of Oyo NUJ, which supposed to clear members but the Council jettisoned the petitions unattended to.

“It was in this line with this that we are using this medium to call the attention of National body of the NUJ to the atrocities of Oyo NUJ.”