Comrade Isiguzor Floors Odusile, Emerges NUJ National President

By Patrick Ochei

The National Vice President of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Zone C, Comrade Chris Isiguzor has doggedly defeated the incumbent National President, Comrade Waheed Odusile to emerge the National President.

He polled 346 votes to beat Odusile who scored 329 at the 6th Triennial Delegates Conference of the NUJ, held between Wednesday 3rd and Friday 5th October, 2018, at the Cultural Centre, Abeokuta, Ogun State.

The delegates believed that there were several flaws that worked against Waheed Odusile who is viewed as dangerously introvertive.

Another scenario that determined Odusile’s fate was the Business Session where members viewed the financial report as an object of irregularity.

Rather than explain explicitly the content of the report, he chose to be defensive and autocratic, which initially resulted in a rowdy session before it was brought to a peaceful close.

But at that moment, most members were displeased and already taken a position before going into the election process.

Again, taking a cursory analysis of the Union since the emergence of Odusile, the NUJ image appeared to have dwindled a great deal.

As a result of this concern as insinuated, the Nigerian President has not attended any of NUJ’s activities these past three years; unlike when Garba Mohammed and others held sway.

The case at hand is the 6th Triennial Delegates Conference which held at Odusile’s home State of Ogun. Not even Governor Ibikunle Amosun attended; even the Minister, Lai Mohammed had to send a representative as his usual.

The truth is that failure of Odusile in his first term opened the eyes of delegates to the sterling qualities and capacity of Chris Isiguzor among the retinue of National Presidential candidates.

Isiguzor according to his impeccable profile started very well from his chapel and then rose to become a two-term Chairman of Abia State Council of the NUJ. From there having been found worthy of representing, he was elected as the National Vice President of Zone C.

Chris Isiguzor is the Thisday Correspondent in Abia State, a very fluent public speaker and a dependable Unionist.

The 6th Triennial Delegates Conference of the NUJ hosted 906 delegates across the 36 States of the federation and FCT Abuja, out of which 346 magnanimously elected Comrade Chris Isiguzor to clinch the saddle of the highest office in NUJ.