…says association has import roles to play in the development of the country.

Ex Education Minister, Prof. Agada urges new Exco to unite association

By Peter Duru, Makurdi

The newly elected National President of the Association of Nigerian Authors, ANA, Dr. Camillus Ukah has stated that members of the association are critical stakeholders in the Nigerian project who must devote themselves to the development of the country.

Dr. Ukah who spoke shortly after his emergence at an Emergency General Meeting of the association held at the weekend in Makurdi said ANA has an important role to play in the development of the country and it should be driven by selfless service.

Dr. Ukah said “my message always has been that I have an implicit conviction that our association has a prime place in national development because we are dealing with literature which is capital, in human capital development and it involves creativity.

“So I have faith in the conviction of our association and that of Nigerians on the issue of national development. That is my driving force, that is why I enjoy being a member of ANA and I enjoy being a writer.

“We therefore have important roles to play in the issue of national development and to do what we must to have a vibrant body.

“So I believe strongly that if everybody, every member of the association can contribute his or her selfless service, the association will grow and impact meaningfully in the development of our country.

“So my charge to the association as always is selfless service. Given the circumstances that led to my emergence I have every reason and motivation to render selfless service considering the faith and the support we enjoy from our elders.

“You can imagine people taking the risk to come to Benue given what we are in now, the COVID-19 virus and even the dangers on the roads and challenges they faced on the road. It was all about commitment to make sure that the soul of the association remained healthy.

“So I have reason to give service and by God’s Grace I will not fail to deliver selfless service to the association.

“Moreover I recall that I made various promises during the campaign so it can only take selfless service to drive me to give to the association what I have promised in furtherance of the goals, mission and vision of the ANA,” Dr. Ukah who was a former National Vive President said.

Also speaking, the immediate past National President of the association, Denja Abdullahi who gave an insight into how the new leadership emerged explained that the emergency meeting met all the laid down rules of the association for the convocation of the convention.

According to him, “in this meeting we have about 55 persons from about 20 active chapters of the association. And we have fulfilled all the requirements for forming a quorum for this kind of meeting.

“It is an Emergency General Meeting that is called when there is something of great importance that the normal meeting cannot wait for.

“It is important to note that we had to have this meeting because at our 38th. Convention which took place in Enugu that should have ushered in a new Executive Council could not achieve that because their was a disruption in the election due to political contentions.

“A group who perceived that the election would not go their way came and deliberately disrupted the process. Just like the normal Nigerian political activity. Once you know a democratic process will not favour you, you come with your own thugs and make that election impossible so that another one will be held where you will contest again.

“That is what happened to us. A group saw that the odds were against them and they imported thugs and made sure that the process did not continue. They even met before the day of the election to plan what they did.

“So because our constitution says that when election does not take place at a convention, the National Advisory Council will take over and convoke and Emergency General Meeting which will led to the formation of a caretaker committee which will conduct an election. And that is what we have done.

“What this means is that the leaders we have now are leaders that have been duly, validly and legally elected and they will now handle the affairs of the association for two years.”

Continuing, he said, “the people that made this possible are all members, leaders across the chapters who are here.

“What we have here at the meeting is a fair representation, of course we are in a very difficult time of COVID-19 coupled security problems in the country otherwise we would have had so much crowd here.

“But the problem here is that as we speak large gatherings are not allowed anywhere in Nigeria now. So we had to stick to the COVID-19 protocol of not having a large assembly. That is why we told people coming from all chapters across the country to limit their numbers two.

“Otherwise if we had allowed people to come the way they wanted to, we would have had more than 300 persons here which would have violated the protocol.

“Needless to say that we had to convene the meeting because no one knows when this COVID thing will die down. Moreover important decisions are also taken in the country now through virtual meetings, so we agreed that those who were not present physically could join via zoom. And a lot of our people joined us online today in the course of the meeting.”

While charging the new executive to reach out to some aggrieved members of the association in order to bring them to one fold, the former National President urged ANA members to jettison their personal interest for the greater good of the association.

He said “the onus lies with the newly elected executive to bring the house back together. Of course overtures can be made to ensure that those aggrieved can come together in unity.”

Also speaking, member of Rivers State chapter of ANA, Dr. Obari Gomba said the election of the new National leadership of ANA had corrected the wrongs of the aborted Enugu convention of last year.

“So as it stands now we have an executive to pilot the affairs of the association for two years which we consider very imports because for me we have been able to right the difficulties that we had in Enugu at the convention we had last year.

“The two day events were highly successful. There was an election but the contestants stood for those positions unopposed because after the nominations there was a general consensus that they were the best people for the positions, so people did not run against them. And at the end of it we had them elected into those offices,” he stated.

On his part, Aderinoye Abdur-Rahman Adebayo, the Kwara state chairman of ANA further explained that the meeting which was convened by the Prof Jerry Agada led Caretaker Committee had several members who attended via zoom.

“We had our members who attended online. We also had other members of the Caretaker committee who joined us via zoom and it was indeed a worthwhile session.

“Today ANA can enjoy a breathe of fresh air in the sense that we now have an executive in place and that is essentially what we did.

“In the meeting we had the likes of Prof. Remi Raji, Dr. Wale Okediran, Prof. Olu Obafemi, we had Prof. Akachi and several other members who participated from all over the country. In all we had a very wonderful outing.

“Today ANA at the national level can have a breathe of fresh air and we hope to move the association to the next level by God’s Grace,” he added.

Also, an elder of the association and former Commissioner of Works and Transport in Bayelsa state, Engr. Emmanuel Frank-Opigo said the gathering in Makurdi was to create a new path of unity for the association after the aborted Enugu convention which factionalized the association.

Engr. Frank Opigo who is currently the Director of Works and Services at the Niger Delta University observed that ANA had been a united and formidable house after it came into being in 1981 “but recently things started happening and we do not know why.

“Especially last year at the convention in Enugu, there was a lot of acrimony which resulted in the election not being held in an election year of ANA because our election is held every two years.

“A group of persons within ANA imposed themselves on the association illegally and that is why we have come to Makurdi to follow the constitutional procedure to produce an executive that would lead and move the association forward.

“So what we have done here is very transparent, very legal and legitimate. We hope that from here onwards, inspite of COVID-19, the association will start to grow from strength to strength once again.

“I must note that I’m very impressed with the process that led to the election of the new leadership. In this period of COVID with social distancing and all that, you cannot have very large crowd in one place but we still had the whole country here because we went online.

“So we had a representative crowd here. I came from Bayelsa and others came from far and wide and the rest participated online. By implication it was still a full and legitimate convention,” he submitted.

On his part, another elder of the association and former Minister of State for Education, Prof. Jerry Agada charged the new leadership to take steps to assuage aggrieved members in order to unite the house.

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While expressing happiness that the meeting went peacefully the former National President said “we are happy because we now have a new National Executive that we can also recourse to.

“Before today you’ll discover that things have not been okay with the association with some group of persons arrogating to themselves the leadership and whatever of the association. But we the elders of the association had our focus. And the focus is to reposition ANA so that it can regain its lost glory.

“If you cast your minds back to when ANA started up to our present time, you will recall that by 1981 when the first President emerged, that was Prof. Chinua Achebe and after that others came until I because the 9th. National President and then after me things went well until recently.

“In fact in the last convention in Enugu the elections could not hold for one reasons or the other and the elders in ANA decided that they would not sit down and watch while things went wrongly.

“That was why the Advisory Committee under the chairmanship of Prof. Femi Osofisan put in place what they call ANA electoral committee to organize the association so that we can have an executive in place.

“That is what we have been working towards overtime. If you recall we wanted to hold this election in March 28 shortly before the lockdown but we couldn’t at the time but I am happy that we have been able to convene and finished the assignment.

“So my happiness now is to report back to the body of the Advisory Council members under the chairmanship of Prof. Osofisan to tell them that I have achieved the assignment they gave me and that I have handed over to the new Executive.”

Speaking further, Prof. Agada said, “If you know what ANA used to be I have never heard of a splinter group in the association because it is a body of writers in our country.

“So when you talk of a splinter group it is not known to us the members of the Advisory Council. That is why we insisted that we most do whatever we can to get everybody on board so that we can refocus our association for its betterment and that is what we have been doing.

“There is nobody we have not contacted to achieve that, but you know some think they know better, they insult even somebody as old as I am.

“But I didn’t border because if I am not a good elder such things would get me angry and make me turn by back on ANA but I said no.

“I had at the back of my mind a proverb of my People which says if the child of the eye is going astray the eye will continue watching until that child is lost. But if the child of the mouth is going astray, the mouth will ask him to come back. So we the elders have acted in that manner to save the association.

“I must therefore advise the new leadership to be magnanimous in victory. They must not regard any group as enemy, instead their hands should be open and they must do whatever they can to ensure that ANA regains its formidable self that we used to know,” Prof. Agada said.

Meanwhile members of the newly elected National Executive of ANA are Camillus Ukah who emerged National President from Imo state and Farida Mohammed, Vice-President from Niger state.

Others are Maik Ortserga who emerged Secretary from Benue state. Freeman Okoson emerged as Asst. Secretary from Oyo state. Stella Touremi, Treasurer from Bayelsa state.

Chimankpa Ogbueri emerged Financial Secretary from Rivers state. Patrick Taiwo, Auditor from Kaduna state. Wole Adedoyin the PRO South, from Osun state.

Umar Kakamu Aliyu (Yogiza) is the PRO North, from Nasarawa state. Bentex Torlafia emerged the Legal Adviser also from Nasarawa state while Charles Iornumbe is the Ex Officio 1 from Benue state and Odono Matthew is the Ex Officio 2 from Ebonyi state.

Vanguard