Lagos NUJ election

The Lagos NUJ election is at hand. But like the Nigerian national election, the Lagos NUJ election is headed for manipulation. NUJ has a list of cheque-off paying members but it has introduced a new registration for its members who were asked to pay N5,000 each.

People have paid but a new twist is the compulsory biometrics to be done as if one is going for a visa interveiw in a foreign Embassy. Worst still, instead of extending the execise to end a day or two to the election to allow for more members to get it done, they want it closed a week to.

Knowing the tight schedule of most practising journalists who must go out on their beat to gather stories, the plan is to ensure that serious working journalists may miss out while those who have become political journalists and have all the time to hang around the secretariat on a daily basis will do theirs. The idea is to ensure that the favoured candidates of the incumbents who are not seeking re-election are planted to, as usual, cover their tracks.

My question to the National President of the NUJ, Alhaji Waheed Odusile is why is Lagos insisting on the Biometrics while another state, Plateau, I learnt, didn't use it for their own election. He must do something about this to check any plan by some people to manipulate the election.

We insist that the Lagos NUJ election must not be manipulated to favour any candidate, let the candidates go to the poll to test their popularity