By JOHNSON EBIGIDE
As the election of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Delta State Council, is finally scheduled to hold on Wednesday, October 18, 2023 in Asaba, the state capital, it has become necessary to alert members of the union of the iron cast maneuvering of an opposition political party in the state in ensuring its infiltration of the union and thereafter weakening the envisioned MORE Agenda of the state government.
The party is said to be targeting the critical position of Secretary of the council by sponsoring two of its members in the election.
Reports have it that the party has released several thousands of Naira to their choice candidates with a view to buying the conscience of the voting members in the election.
It was also reported that, head or tail, the party was cocksure of having its way in either of the two sponsored, gunning for the secretary position in the election.
A very senior member of the union in the state who spoke on condition of anonymity on the issue wondered why political gladiators would always want to impose candidates on the state council of the union, adding that it was responsible for the low esteem of the union in the state. He enjoined the voting members of the union in the state to be wary of the evil machinations of the marauding political party, just as he warned that the rising fortune of the union would plummet again to those dark days when it was treated with leprosy disdain, should the clandestine undoing of the union succeed in the state.
A critical stakeholder and veteran journalist in the state who also spoke in like manner said that NUJ was easily swayed with money, adding that it was never the fault of practising journalists in the state, but the shabby treatment melted on most of them by their employers which, he opined, had deadened their ethical sensibility and professionalism.
He likened the situation to the biblical selling of his birth right by Esau to Jacob, his younger brother, because of his incontinence and inability to endure a temporary hunger by accepting a momentary satisfaction in a watery porridge !
The veteran said that most journalists in the state were self-centered and only ahead of their colleagues in the unwholesome trade of unnecessary showmanship, backstabbing and wholesale of the union to its tradducers for peanuts.
He advised that as the council election had been slated as earlier stated, members should look inwards and ensure that only credible candidates, particularly those eyeing the secretary position, which has been endangered by the infiltration of the said political party, were voted in.
Yes, advice is never a commandment ! Delta NUJ needs self- determination, not a council under the spell and control of sponsored members, doing the biddings of their sponsors to ruin the growth of the state through the MORE Agenda.
