By Victor Ahiuma-Young

Indications have emerged on failed plots to scuttle the factional special delegates conference by the 23 aggrieved affiliates of Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, that has produced Comrade Joe Ajaero of the National Union of Electricity Employees, NUEE, as President.

Wabba

Sunday Vanguard gathered that the Ayuba Wabba faction had briefed its lawyers to stop the conference earlier scheduled for yesterday through the court.

But the 23 aggrieved unions, on getting wind of the plot to use court to scuttle the conference, decided to bring it backward to last Thursday. It was gathered that when the special delegates conference of Thursday was brought to the knowledge of the Wabba faction in Abuja, its leaders dismissed it as an ordinary meeting based on the information it got from informants.

When it became obvious that it was not an ordinary meeting, but a special delegates conference, it was too late to do anything.One of the leaders of the 23 aggrieved unions said, “We were aware of their plots to scuttle our conference with court injunction or any other methods. But while they were working towards Friday and Saturday as we earlier planned, we decided to bring it backward to Thursday.”

More facts on March 12 election

Meanwhile, more facts have emerged on how the March 12 rescheduled election, held at Eagle Square, Abuja, was allegedly manipulated.

A close look at the result announced for the presidential election in which Mr. Ayuba Wabba, of Medical and Health Workers Union of Nigeria, MHWUN, was declared as the new President of NLC, was higher than the number of delegates accredited.

The NLC Election Returning Officer and pioneer General Secretary of Congress, Aliyu Dangiwa, had, penultimate Saturday, announced that Wabba scored 1,695 votes to defeat Ajaero who scored 1,400 votes.

This result was confirmed by the advertorial the NLC General Secretary placed in some newspapers on Monday, March 16.

The Chairman of the Credentials Committee that conducted the election, Dr. Isa Fagge, told Sunday Vanguard that 3,005 delegates and not 3,119, as earlier advertised by the NLC secretariat, were accredited to vote, saying two unions did not turn for the election.

According to him, 10 votes were voided with the agreement of both Wabba and Ajaero’s agents.

The General Secretary of the NLC, who was also the Secretary of the Credentials Committee, Dr. Peter Ozo-Eson, corroborated the Chairman on the number of voided votes and accredited delegates, but insisted the declared result, as announced by the Returning Officer at the venue of the election and published by him in some national dailies, was the outcome of the election.

Sunday Vanguard investigation revealed that there is discrepancy between the result announced for the candidates and the number of delegates accredited for the election.

By simple arithmetic, if you void 10 votes from 3,005 accredited delegates, you have 2,995 remaining. If you add the 1,695 votes credited to Wabba with the 1,400 votes credited to Ajaero, it gives you 3,095 votes. If you minus 2,995 from 3,095, you will have 100 votes as surplus.

*Joe Ajaero, NUEE General Secretary.

The question then is, where did the 100 votes come from?

Similarly, it was alleged that before the agent of Joe Ajaero was attacked and taken to hospital, he had recorded 1,538 votes for Ajaero and 1,460 for Wabba.

Giving details of what transpired before the alleged attack, the agent, Mr. Okorodudu Benson, told Sunday Vanguard: “After the voting process was completed, at the point of collation, I noticed that some ballot papers were stuffed into the wrong boxes despite the fact that all the ballot boxes were conspicuously tagged. I raised objection that any ballot paper found in a wrong ballot box should be invalidated. The first person who responded was John Odah, immediate past General Secretary of Congress, who was not a member of the Credentials Committee, but was busy handling ballot papers. He said my observation was senseless. This led to serious argument; at the end, the Chairman of the Credentials Committee summoned a meeting of some principal officers and came up with a verdict that the ballot papers be accepted irrespective of the box they were found. He added that though this was a violation of the election guidelines, all contestants would benefit from it.

“At the end of the first sorting of ballots, 300 ballot papers meant for the position of Deputy President were collated from wrong boxes, 299 ballot papers meant for the positions of Auditors were found in wrong boxes, while 28 ballot papers for the Office of President were found collated from wrong boxes. I then stood up again to register my displeasure and insisted that on the ballot papers for the office of the President found in other boxes, I will not accept them because I am the returning agent for Joe Ajaero. At this point, Omar told the Credentials Committee Chairman that he had the right  to demand for the replacement of any agent who was stubborn. I was then asked to sit down while John Odah was asked to leave as he was not a member of the committee.

“Having completed the process of separating the ballot papers, when it came to sorting the ballots for the Office of the Pesident, Comrade Abdulwaheed Omar carried the ballot box and placed it on the table and called on the Credentials Committee Chairman to bring the key to open the box. I then asked why this drama because the box was already opened with the side of glass holding the staple broken off. Despite my observation, Omar asked him to go ahead as, according to him, there was no more time and that the security operatives were threatening to drive everyone out of the venue once it was 6 pm. All these happened in the full glare of media personnel who supposedly had their cameras on. We did the sorting of the ballots with the aid of two young men introduced to us as NLC corps members.

“At the  end of the sorting, I recorded a total of 3,009 votes with seven blank ballot and four other ballot papers that were invalidated bringing it to 11 the number of invalidated votes. Ajaero had a total of 1,538 votes, while Wabba had 1,460 votes. The agent of Wabba immediately shook my hands and congratulated me. At this juncture, the Chairman of the Credentials Committee asked Wabba’s agent what was wrong with him and he immediately switched over to Hausa language. While this communication in Hausa language continued between the two, Omar rushed down and spoke to the Chairman in Hausa language. The next thing he said in English Language was that we should not count the ballots and that any form of documentation we had done was illegal. He directed the Chairman to withdraw all our jottings from us. I protested to the knowledge of media and security personnel around us that I was not releasing the piece of paper where I took note of the sorting. Omar left in annoyance.

“The next thing I noticed was power outage at the venue of election. Immediately thereafter, a piece of cloth was hauled at my face. When power was restored, I was choking and battling to breath.  I staggered from my seat and fell down. As I fell, I heard someone calling for the release of security dogs and the horse, while some were shouting for ambulance. The events that followed were later narrated to me as I became unconscious and did not know how I was rushed to hospital by policemen. I was however shocked on how policemen carried me on the front page of Vanguard of March 17, 2015. It was obvious that their mission was not to revive me, but to get rid of me because the photograph speaks for itself. There is no way you can carry a man who collapsed the way they carried me.”

Ajaero’s acceptance

In the meantime, Ajaero, after being sworn-in as a factional leader of the NLC, reeled out his plans for workers, saying the powers and influence of the Congress, in terms of the defense of workers rights and being the vanguard of the poor and the oppressed in our country, have been at the lowest level in the last four years under the leadership of Comrade Abdulwaheed Umar .