To move the Nigerian Union of Journalist (NUJ) forward, members in Imo state council Thursday inaugurated a new caretaker committee led by Mr. Steve Uzoechi of the New Telegraph newspapers as chairman of the Correspondents’ Chapel.
Other officers inaugurated included: Precious Nwadike of Watchdog Newspapers as vice chairman, Austin Okoro of Eastern Lead Express as secretary and four other members.
The inauguration of the committee followed the lingering crisis in the chapel which took the three chairmanship contenders in the last inconclusive Imo NUJ elections to court since 2019.
Acting in line with the NUJ constitution, the journalists had a stakeholders’ meeting a few days ago and eventually stormed the NUJ secretariat Thursday to nominate and swore in members of the 7-man committee.
With this arrangement, the warring factions in the union, led by Elder Lambert Ojukwu, Sir Amby Uneze and Chris Akaraonye who had been in court since last year were advised to step aside from Imo NUJ activities to enable them concentrate fully on their legal battle and allow the union move forward.
It is worthy to note that towards the end of the inauguration, some persons loyal to one of the factional leaders, Chris Akaraonye, came in with plain cloth policemen with claims that some thugs were taking over the secretariat. But when the policemen discovered that what was taking place was normal democratic process, they quietly left the hall.
After the inauguration, the newly inaugurated chairman, Mr. Uzoechi, his executive and other members who witnessed the ceremony went round the secretariat to see the level of destruction in the premises with the hope of engaging friends of the union to put it in order in the next few weeks.
