By Ukandi Christopher.
After five years of hiatus the board of the Rivers State Cooperative Federation has been reconstituted under a new leadership in an election held at the Ministry of Justice Auditorium, Port Harcourt, Tuesday.
The reconstitution of the board saw the election of Mr. Brilliant Amadi as President and ten others for a term of four years.
Speaking immediately after the election, Mr. Amadi stated that the body has been in darkness for a long time and with his election, a new dawn has emerged in the state.
His words: “The Rivers State cooperative federation like I said earlier, has been in darkness all this while, with recent turn of events with my emergence as the president, I think a new dawn has returned to the body. Rivers State would see a new face of cooperative in every aspect of life because cooperative is about business and development of the people.”
Mr. Amadi added that now that the period of litigation was over and with the new board in place, it was time for cooperators in the state to sheath the sword and come together and reconcile their differences.
He further stated that the reconciliation if achieved would lead to the development of Rivers State.
On his part, a member of the reconstituted board, Dr. Nimi Tamuno, Director of Transport and Housing stated that now that the battle was over, it was time to prioritize the development of the people.
However, the election did not go entirely without drama as a section of the Unions affiliated to the Rivers State Cooperative Federation walked out of the hall in protest over what they called failure to comply with the rules of engagement, which was that only affiliated Unions that pays their annual subscription to the Federation should participate in the election.
The protesters claimed most of the delegates allow to vote in the election were not qualified to vote the new board to office.