OUTRAGE OVER PLANS TO IMPOSE 'ANOINTED' CANDIDATE AS LAGOS NUT COOPERATIVES PRESIDENT

Members of the Nigeria Union of Teachers, NUT Cooperatives and Multipurpose Society, Lagos Island branch have expressed disgust over plans by officials of the Lagos State Government to impose an ‘anointed’ candidate to become the president of the association.

The union holds its election on Thursday, 19 October, 2017 at the Lagos City Hall, but members are bitter that the junior sister of Governor Akinwunmi Ambode is being made to run for the president of the association unopposed.

Mrs Tolulope Kuforiji-Ajibola, Secretary-General of the association is supposed to contest the presidency with Miss Kehinde Ambode, but Kuforiji-Ajibola has been knocked out after the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Cooperatives, Olalekan Akodu was alleged to have applied the Cooperatives’ law to disqualify her to pave way for Ambode.

Prior before now, it was gathered that the  election committee had released the time table, sold nomination forms and concluded screening and approved the eligibility of aspirants.

The area officer for Lagos Island represented the Lagos State Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Cooperative at the screening.

Two days after, Akodun was alleged to have released a memo that a section of the Lagos State Cooperative Law which is not in union’s by-laws should be applied.

The section states that a management committee member after being in office for four years will wait for another four years before he or she could contest again.

This directive disqualified Kuforiji-Ajibola who is contesting for president against Kehinde Ambode, a supervisory committee member.

It was learnt that the supervisory committee member, in practice, is elected contrary to a section of the by-law which states that the supervisory committee member is appointed.

Members are of the view that if there will be any disqualification, all the outgoing executive members should go or all of them should be allowed to contest.

The idea of sole candidate for the president post did not go down well with some members who felt that democracy should be allowed to hold sway.

It was also alleged that the Tutor-General, Lagos State Education District 3, Margaret Solarin invited the two presidential aspirants to a meeting with all heads of departments and six principals. At the meeting, they appealing to the disqualified aspirant to accept the verdict as her fate.

The Tutor General was said to have specifically appealed to the disqualified aspirant to honour her and accept the verdict, but she had told them that the decision lied in the hands of the cooperators.

PM NEWS