DOM ZIMEGAPI
Thursday 12th of July 2018 has been slated by journalists practicing in Rivers state as a day set aside for the Triennial Delegates Conference which would have culminated with the election of new officers to man the affairs of the organization in the next 3-years. But that is now a dream dashed as Mr. Obed Omah of Radio Rivers Fm 99.1 chapel of Rivers Council of NUJ is said to have approached a court sitting at Port Harcourt judicial division seeking for an exparte Motion and later Interlocutory Injunction stopping the triennial delegates Conference of 2018.
www.towncrier.ng gathered that Mr. Obed Omah who is contesting for the post of Chairman was earlier cleared to participate in the election by the national headquarters of Nigerian Union of journalists NUJ Abuja but trouble began for him when one of an indigenous leader of Sports Writers Association SWAN with office at Abuja put his feet down on Mr. Obed Omah not to be elected Chairman as Rivers state Council of NUJ. With this political gerrymandering, the Local Organizing Committee surreptitiously and allegedly complied with that disposition and Obed Omah got the shocker of his life when he was told by Rivers state NUJ Council that he cannot stand in for the July 12th, 2018 election proper.
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In 2015 triennial Delegates Conference when Mr. Obed Omah had aspired to be elected as Chairman of rivers state NUJ Council he was disqualified on alleged charges of financial impropriety and not hold a constitutional prerequisite of at least a diploma in Journalism or mass Communication. But he is a graduate of Library Science and has been working in a broadcasting organization owned by Rivers state Government thus angered by this electoral qualification anomaly Mr. Obed Omah headed to the court to have the election stopped until the substantive matter before the court of competent jurisdiction is determined. With this there are palpable confusion among journalists in Rivers state who had prepared for a change of baton at the Ernest Ikoli Press Centre Port Harcourt.