Osun State-based civil society organisations under the aegis of Civil Societies Coalition for the Emancipation of Osun State (CSCEOS), has condemned the National President of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Mr Waheed Odusile and Mr. Sunday Akere, former Commissioner for Information and Strategy/Consultant on Information and Strategy to Osun State Governor, Mr Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola, over the annulment of the recent NUJ poll in the state.

According to the group, the recently-conducted Osun Council NUJ election where Comrades Abiodun Olalere of the Osun State Broadcasting Corporation (OSBC) and Boladale Bamigbola of the National Mirror emerged chairman and secretary respectively, was free, fair credible and generally acceptable.

CSCEOS noted: “Annulment of the Osun NUJ election was a replication of the annulment of June 12, 1993 presidential election won by late business mogul, Bashorun M.K.O. Abiola, without any concrete justification by then anti-democratic forces led by General Ibrahim Babangida,” adding that the people of Osun State rejected the action of the union’s national body under Odusile’s watch.

In an online statement issued and signed by the CSCEOS’ Chairman, Comrade Alimi Sulaiman Adeniyi, and made available to News Express, the group insisted that the decision of the national body of the NUJ was unacceptable to the good people of Osun, even as it maintained that the

annulment was done in bad faith and was political.

The statement alleged that Mr Akere, on behalf of Governor Aregbesola, must have instigated the Odusile-led national body of the union, to annul the election.

The CSCEOS chair, who further alleged that Odusile became the tool in the hands of Akere and Aregbesola to annul the election, because Odusile was a staff of The Nation, where Aregbesola was an executive director and this made Odusile to willingly comply with the biddings of Aregbesola and his cohorts.

He observed: “It was unacceptable to annul the recently conducted Osun State Council of NUJ election, which was devoid of acrimony among the contestants and stakeholders, during the electioneering process. We believe that development was political and done in bad faith to satisfy Messrs Odusile and Akere’s paymaster, Mr Aregbesola. This is high time for politicians in the country, particularly in Osun State, to know that most of the associations and unions had to be free from their political bondage in order to restore their lost glory.”

Comrade Sulaiman described the annulment as unconstitutional, undemocratic, evil, anti-journalists, ungodly, an aberration, anathema and action against media profession and humanity, calling on lovers of the noble profession to come out and condemned the barbaric act of Odusile-led Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ).

He then urged the national body of the union to reverse its action on the Osun State Council election by upholding the result of the poll. He urged those who wrote frivolous petitions against the union’s peaceful, credible and transparent election to withdraw their alleged petitions, so as to allow peace to reign in the respected noble profession, by accepting the outcome of the election with a spirit of sportsmanship.

The group, therefore, warned those who were not members of the union, but using some elements within the union to discredit the just-concluded election, to desist from the dastard act of returning Nigeria back to the dark days of military era where democratic processes were suspended at will.

•Photo shows NUJ President Waheed Odusile.

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