Unless something is urgently done to avert it, a fresh crisis capable of rupturing the fragile peace in the Oyo State chapter of the National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) appears imminent, Sunday Tribune can report.
The brewing crisis is being sparked by alleged refusal of the chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) in the state, Bayo Sodo, to step down as electoral committee chairman and allow a neutral committee to conduct the election of the union as stipulated by NULGE constitution.
Sodo, who currently doubles as head of NULGE, chairs the electoral committee and he is allegedly supporting one of the chairmanship candidates, Mrs RomokeOpabunmi, out of the three gunning for the headship of NULGE in the state.
The NLC chairman was initially accused of trying to shut out Alhaji Akeem Oyewo and Abass Bogunbe, who are said to command majority of NULGE followership, from contesting in the election by refusing to allow nomination forms to be sold to them.
It took the intervention of aides of Governor Seyi Makinde and the Head of Service, Mrs Amidat Ololade Agboola, for the forms to be sold to Oyewo and Bogunde on Friday, enough time to beat the Tuesday deadline for the sale and submission of forms.
Sunday Tribune gathered that apart from Sodo’s alleged partisanship, another issue threatening peace in the union ahead of the April 7 rescheduled election is the issue of delegate composition.
Majority of NULGE members are sticking to the union’s constitutional provision which stipulates that eight delegates shall be elected from each of the 36 branches to join the state executive members and all branch chairmen who are automatic delegates.
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But Sodo is said to have decreed that all branch executive members, rather than the eight to be elected, would form the delegates’ list, claiming that was the constitutional requirements.
Investigation by Sunday Tribune revealed that there are three different versions of NULGE constitution in circulation among members, a development that has incensed a group to approach the industrial court in Ibadan to determine the authentic one.
The election of the union, which was held on November 6, 2019, was truncated midway following a court order stopping it.
Reacting to the allegations, Sodo, in a telephone interview with Sunday Tribune, said the new constitution of the union which is in use in the state, had been deployed for the conduct of elections in Ogun, Ekiti, Ondo, Bayelsa, Rivers and otherstates.
He said the 2005 constitution of the union, which allowed for elected delegates, had since been replaced with a new one which allowed already elected members to vote at NULGE elections.
“As far as I am concerned, I have the right to have soft spot for any of the candidates. But have they seen me come out to campaign for anybody? Even if I so do, it is within my rights. There is none of the three candidates who has not come to my house to seek my support. I can only support one person. Now, the field has been opened to them, why are they afraid of their own shadows?
“Why did they submit themselves to the election, given the situation on the ground? In the November election, they went to court to get an injunction later they withdrew the matter. Now, they are back in court and a date has been fixed for hearing,” he said.
and then