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| Emmanuel Ogbeche, Chairman, FCT Council and Jide Adeyemi |
By Blessing Etim
Jide Oyekunle Adeyemi of the Daily Independent Newspaper has emerged the new chairman of the Correspondents’ Chapel, FCT Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ).
Impact News reports that though the 2022 election was keenly contested, Adeyemi who was a two-term Correspondents Chapel Secretary, contested unopposed and won by 57 votes out of the 61 accredited votes.
In his Inauguration speech, the new cyhapel Chairman maintained that his leadership will strongly condemn gagging of the press, as well as any form of violence targeted at journalists by security operatives in FCT.
“Our members have become subject of attacks in the hands of security operatives while carrying out their statutory and constitutional duties”.
According to him, “If democracy is about good governance, accountability and transparency, then the freedom of the press should not be curtailed in any way. Journalism is not a crime. Journalism is about development and positive change of any democratic society.” He added.
Although Seven Aspirants picked the nomination form, only four were eligible to contest. Other Aspirants were however disqualified by the Supervisory body of the NUJ Council on various grounds, this came after the candidates had gone through the screening exercise anchored by the electoral committee and were cleared.
Meanwhile, the NUJ Chairman, FCT Council, Comrade Emmanuel Ogbeche, gave the new executive a three month window to organize bye election into the offices of the Assistant Secretary, the Financial Secretary and Internal Auditor.
In the race for other positions which were unopposed, Grace Ike of Silverbird group emerged Vice- Chairman of the Chapel with 61 votes, Raphael Oni of Diplomat Magazine became the new Secretary of the Chapel with 59 votes and Emmanuel Ehijene of Plus TV Africa returned as the Chapel’s Treasurer with 59 votes.
