Membership: Southeast NUJ VP, Enugu chairman dragged to court over ineligibility

VICE President of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Southeast Zone, Chris Isiguzo and the Enugu State Chairman of NUJ, Rex Arum, have been dragged to National Industrial Court sitting in Enugu over alleged ineligibility as members of the Correspondents’ Chapel of the Enugu State Chapter of NUJ.

When the case came up for mention on Wednesday, the Presiding Judge, Justice I.J. Ezirim, adjourned to March 27, 2018, for definite hearing in the suite.

The suite with reference number: NICN/EN/2017 was filed by the Chairman of the Enugu State Correspondents’ Chapel of the NUJ, Comrade Petrus Obi.

The suit seeking the interpretation of article 3(2a) of the constitution of the NUJ which centres on qualification for membership of the body was called for the mention, Wednesday, by the presiding Judge.

Justice Ezirim, who had earlier insisted that the matter ought to have come as an originating summon later accepted that it should proceed as filed after discovering that there were no certificates attached to the statement of defence filed by the defendants stating that the content of the defence was trivial.

The Judge who was shocked to discover that some vital pages were missing from his own copy of the statement of defence had to photocopy the claimant lawyer’s copy so that he could have a complete document raising insinuations that the documents may have been tampered with to deceive the judge.

“The statement of defence is not complete. The documents annexed are not in my file. I don’t have the complete defence filed. I don’t know why they decided to remove some pages from the one they filed”, the Judge said in bewilderment.

In an interview, the claimant’s lawyer and the legal adviser of the NUJ in the South East, Emeka Okologbu-Njoku, said, “the trial court looked at the processes and saw that they were duly served and had now adjourned the matter to the 27th of march for definite hearing.

“Moreover, there is a pending application before the court. An interlocutory injunction which we will pray the court in the next adjourned date to grant us, to stop the two of them from parading themselves as members of the NUJ Correspondent’s Chapel.

“In the defence filed, none of them has even exhibited a secondary school qualification. As we were discussing the matter in court, the court was of the view that they had something but I rightly informed the court that they did not file any certificate.

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“They did not attach any certificates from any known institution. What they presented was a clearance from the national secretary of the NUJ for an election that held in 2016.

“Our demands in the suit are that the National Industrial Court should stop Chris Isiguzo and Rex Arum from parading themselves as members of the Correspondents’ Chapel and that they should stop attending meetings and functions organised by the body”, he said.

Neither the defendants nor their legal representatives were in court during the sitting.