Amid the hues and cries by some members of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) that the association’s current National Executive Council (NEC) is not legal, in this interview with AWAAL GATA, Chairman, Forum of ANA Chairmen, Kavwam Stanley Augustine, argues to the contrary.
What prompted the meeting that led to the election of ANA new exco in Abuja?
In line with Article 9.9 of ANA Constitution, the General Congress that met in Enugu in November 2019 elected the ELCOM of Akachi Ezeigbo, Odia Ofeimun, Remi Raji, Yemi Adebiyi and Odoh Diego Okenyodo. This record is borne by all who attended the Enugu Convention, except those who must, for whatever reason, deny the truth. Therefore, any hint to the contrary, is nothing but an obvious falsehood: the General Congress of ANA elected the five-member ELCOM comprising those five members of ANA already mentioned.
However, this ELCOM couldn’t conduct elections at the Convention in Enugu because the desperate attempts by Mallam Denja Abdullahi to rig the elections in favour of his anointed Presidential candidate was found out by the delegates to the said Convention and resolutely resisted. As a result, Professor Remi Raji, acting as spokesman for the five-member ELCOM, informed the General Congress, then sitting in a dark hall rented by ANA for the event, that the five-member ELCOM should retreat into a meeting with us, the Chairmen of all ANA Chapter present in order to decide on the way forward regarding the elections.
The General Congress unanimously accepted the motion for us to, on behalf of the General Congress, meet with the five-member ELCOM. Therefore, to anybody who doubts our authority to act on behalf of the General Congress in respect of the National Elections of ANA that was to hold in Enugu but failed to hold, I say: this is the pivotal moment of our power-vesting! We, the Chairmen of ANA present, newly vested with the power to represent the General Congress in this respect, proceeded into a meeting with the said five-member ELCOM, and I can authoritatively tell you that it was an Emergency General Meeting we held, with about 28 of us Chairmen in attendance. I voted among the 24 in favour of not proceeding with the elections that night in Enugu and the rest voting against. When the Communique was announced by Professor Remi Raji, after the Emergency General Meeting between us and the five-member ELCOM, there was nothing on record to show that any member of ANA, or any group of members of ANA had questioned the delegated power of the Chairmen to meet with the five-member ELCOM regarding the said elections.
Since the Enugu Convention, ANA members had witnessed several acts by some ill-intentioned members of our association, attempting to dissolve the five-member ELCOM elected by the General Congress during the Enugu Convention: there was outright resignation from the ELCOM by Professor Remi Raji; there was the blunt refusal by Professor Akachi Ezeigbo to perform her duties as Chairman of the ELCOM; there was the deliberate subversive frolics by Odia Ofeimun towards derailing the clear course of the ELCOM to conduct elections within the agreed 180 days; there was also the subversive “election” of an ELCOM for ANA by Professor Femi Osofisan, comprising the many of the ex-Presidents of ANA that the Congress of Enugu had rejected. In all these, there was no record showing that the ANA General Congress had withdrawn the power it delegated to the Chairmen of ANA to oversee the five-member ELCOM that the said General Congress had constituted in Enugu. And, I hasten to add that, having vested us Chairmen with the said powers, no other body or person (not an Advisory Council, assuming same existed) could either wish away or take away such power.
Pursuant to the foregoing facts, many of us patriotic Chairmen of ANA Chapters across Nigeria had watched in shock as attempts after attempts were made at rubbishing the trust vested on them by the General
Assembly. We, the same Chairmen, aware of the trust resting on us to execute the task of overseeing elections into the National Executive Council of our association, made a few attempts to meet at certain dates and venues in order to ask the ELCOM questions regarding the levels of preparedness for the said elections, but without success.
It was only when the Abuja Chapter Chairman rose to the occasion and, spurred by the consequences to ANA of lapsing tenures of several among us Chapter Chairmen like her, organised a meeting in Abuja and invited all to attend. I am aware that the organisers of the Abuja meeting formally invited all the Chapter Chairmen of ANA across the country as well as the five-member ELCOM elected by the General Congress in Enugu. I am also aware that the invitation was extended to all Chapter Secretaries of ANA as well as all members of ANA who could afford to attend, including Presidential Candidates for the general elections that held in Enugu.
Therefore, what prompted the Abuja meeting in Abuja that led to the of new National Executive Council members for our association is first and foremost, patriotism for ANA and a sense of responsibility in our part not to allow ANA to die. The original agenda for the Abuja meeting was to enable us, the Chairmen so vested with power by the General Congress in Enugu, to continue with our oversight functions started in Enugu on the five-member ELCOM, which was the reason for the invitation extended to all the said five members.
I am aware that the said agenda remained unchanged, except that it was expanded after we took stock of the number of the Enugu elected ELCOM that responded to the invitation for the Abuja meeting. It became apparent to us present that the attitudes of Professor Akachi Ezeigbo, Professor Remi Raji and Odia Ofeimun, had put ANA under the serious threat of not having the general elections agreed upon in Enugu, to be conducted by the ELCOM within 180 days, of which 130 days had already elapsed! It also occurred to us that the subversive ELCOM of Professor Femi Osofisan had scheduled elections into the National Executive Council of ANA in a few weeks’ time, i.e., 28th March 2020.
Should we then throw our hands up in utter helplessness at the given situation? Should we act, under the oversight powers given to us by the General Congress in Enugu? I would say, credit to us, we voted unanimously in favour of exercising our delegated power and, as a General Congress, elected three other members of the association present in order to make up the deficit in the remaining two members of the ELCOM constituted by General Congress in Enugu. The three new members elected into the ELCOM replaced Professor Akachi Ezeigbo, Professor Remi Raji and Odia Ofeimun who were duly invited but, in continuation of their subversion of the authority of the General Congress of ANA, chose not to attend the meeting.
Many stakeholders are against the election because it was not the normal way ANA conducts general election. It is now being said that the exco is illegal; what is your opinion?
You didn’t mention the names of the stakeholders that are against the Abuja elections. Nevertheless, I want to state categorically that since Ahmed Maiwada and the ANA Renaissance team indicated interest in serving ANA at the national level, stakeholders that we have come to know in ANA are the Chairmen of the State Chapters, other members of the State Executive Councils and ordinary members. It is a new era for ANA, where the majority, who have been denied a voice over the years in ANA, or their rights, are now in the driving seat. And these stakeholders are not complaining about the Abuja elections. I am closer to the members of ANA at the Chapter levels and I am supposed to know this.
Even after the election, Jerry Agada signed a memo inviting writers to come for election in Benue; what would you say to this? If the election eventually holds, have you no fears that ANA would be factionalised?
What I would say to the question on Professor Jerry Agada’s memo is that the memo was not released by the Professor after the elections. I have said earlier that the reason for expanding the agenda for the Abuja meeting to include elections into National Executive Council of ANA was that Professor Jerry Agada had issued a notice for holding elections into the same National Executive Council of ANA earlier on. I think the memo was dated 24th February 2020, stating that the elections would be held in Markudi on 28th March 2020. So, Professor Jerry Agada’s memo was not released after the Abuja elections, but before it, and that it was the reason why elections held in Abuja, because we, the Chairmen of ANA and custodians of the mandate of Congress in respect of the ELCOM that the Congress constituted in Enugu, observed that Jerry Agada set out to subvert the authority of the ANA Congress by that memo. We couldn’t sit and let him do that. And, as I have already mentioned, we took the necessary steps that we did. Would the election in Makurdi hold? That is a big question. As I know; today is 1st April 2020, meaning that today is already three days after the date set for the Makurdi elections. The elections didn’t hold, as expected. So, since your question regarding fractionalising ANA was based on the election in Makurdi holding, then I should simply say that such a fear, as far as it doesn’t materialise, should be discarded. ANA has seen its fair share of decisions.
There was never a time when elections held into the National Executive Council of ANA that we didn’t see opposing camps supporting opposing candidates. This is a tradition, and we shouldn’t see this as an abnormality. What normally happens is that ranks are closed as time goes by and our association has continued to be one, despite our diversities. I am hoping that, going forwards, this should be the case for us.
There are people still calling the executive council illegal, how is that going to be resolved?
Those calling the newly elected executive council of ANA illegal are those on the camp that had conspired to rig the elections in Enugu and so insisted on going on with the elections there but lost the day woefully when the decision was put to vote, or they are misled by those in this camp into believing so. For fear of repeating myself, the Abuja elections held in due keeping with the Constitution of ANA, which provided for directions to take in event of conflict, as we had found ourselves from Enugu. There would always be dissenting voices, especially in a body of writers like ANA.
But those voices are the voices of bad losers, who do not have any argument against the constitutionality of the Abuja elections, other than sentiments. Those voices, if you have observed, were cheering the Agada elections to be held in Makurdi, despite the illegality in which the Agada ELCOM was rooted in. Accordingly, they were thoroughly disappointed when all their hopes were dashed, by the announcement by Professor Agada, of the cancellation of the Makurdi illegality. It was out of that desperation that they turned on the Abuja elections, branding it illegal without citing any cogent constitutional backing for their position. How is it going to be resolved is that the Abuja elections have come to stay. They would have to wait for the next two years in order for them to have a go at any office they might have been interested in taking in the Makurdi election, which, sadly for them, shall not hold.
Chike Ofili was a presidential aspirants in Enugu; was he invited to Abuja?
Chike Ofili was a presidential aspirant in Enugu. He had no following, despite all his claims to support from across Nigeria. It was as a result of that he tried to blackmail the President, Ahmed Maiwada, into stepping down for him, claiming that ANA had a rotational Presidency from North to South, which was false. In any case, he supported the continuation of the elections in Enugu, but lost, in the Emergency General Meeting that held by the Chairmen present with the five-member ELCOM. Chike Ofili was, in my opinion, the last horse in the race for the Presidency of ANA, even in Enugu.
Nonetheless, he was duly invited, as I have mentioned earlier, to attend the Abuja meeting. I was in attendance at the Abuja meeting and I did not see Chike Ofili, meaning that he decided not to attend. It was his own deliberate choice to absent himself from the meeting, and nobody could force him to attend. On the other hand, his absence couldn’t nullify the proceedings at the Abuja meeting, especially as he was the one who knocked himself out of the race by refusing to attend.
As the head of ANA chaimen, what modalities have you put in place to make sure that members of ANA from various chapters work in concert with the NEC?
I am, by the grace of God, not really the head of ANA Chairmen, but a servant of them, with the responsibility of harmonising our interests against being trampled upon by anybody or member of the association. There was a time in recent past when the National leadership of ANA took it upon itself to order the Chairmen around, as though they were his servants, and anybody who dared to assert his constitutional responsibilities was either marginalised or removed from office. It got to a point when many of the State Chapters were so divided by the said immediate past leadership that different factions existed in many of those State Chapters.
An attempt was made on my own Plateau State Chapter by the same forces, but we resisted it. Thank God we’re one united State Chapter today. Thus, learning from past experience, we have this Council of Chairmen chiefly for the purpose of uniting against any such leadership in ANA, or any group that tries to subvert our Constitutional powers, either as individuals or as a group. I have the belief that any National leadership that respects us and our Constitutional positions, such National leadership shall enjoy our cooperation and that of our members, who elected us by majority votes. It is an automatic process.
How can you convince Nigerian authors that your words aren’t on the basis of your support for Maiwada but for justice, equity and fairness?
All that I have said so far in this interview, particularly regarding the election that took place in Abuja, are backed up by articles in the Constitution of ANA. I didn’t quote Ahmed Maiwada’s sayings. My allegiance is first and foremost to the Constitution of ANA, before anybody else. The good thing about Ahmed Maiwada is that, as one of the signatories to the said Constitution, he has sworn to never take any step against the provisions of the said Constitution. Ahmed Maiwada that I know is someone who has given everybody a blank cheque to draw his attention to anything he might have done in error. This means that, in any given situation that Ahmed Maiwada’s personal interest conflicts with the Constitution of ANA, I could freely draw his attention to such a conflict, for him to make adjustments. I have seen Ahmed Maiwada apologise for wrongdoings in the past, publicly and privately. Therefore, there is no fear that when he contradicts the Constitution, by which I have been guided in saying all that I have said in this interview, that a problem would arise. I think justice, equity and fairness, as far as ANA matters are concerned, have to to with what is right and acceptable under the Constitution. Therefore, unless there is anything I have said that contradicts the Constitution, then I think I have been just, equitable and fair, rather than just being a supporter of Ahmed Maiwada.
Don’t you think it will be ideal the Congress of Chairmen or ANA as a whole begin a fence-mending campaign, so as to bring the ‘disgruntled’ members back to the fold?
We are never against reconciliation.
