The Correspondents Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Council on Saturday elected new executives to pilot the affairs of the Chapel for another term of three years.
TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reports leading photojournalist/reporter with the Daily Independent newspaper in Abuja, Mr Jide Oyekunle emerged as the Chairman of the NUJ FCT Correspondents Chapel.
While Ms Grace Ike of Silverbird Group emerged as the Vice Chairman, Mr Raphael Oni of Diplomat Magazine emerged as the Secretary and Mr Emmanuel Ehijene of PlusTV emerged as Treasurer of the Chapel.
Mr Oyekunle and Ms Ike take over the affairs of the Chapel from the Abuja Bureau Chief of the New Telegraph, Mr Philip Nyam, who was the former Chairman of the Chapel and Huram King of Gotel Television, who was the previous Vice Chairman of the Chapel.
Oyekunle until his election to the chairmanship position of the Chapel was the Secretary General for two terms, serving with two different chairmen in the process.
The ace journalist, who assured colleagues of his resolve to tackle the harassment of journalists by security operatives in the FCT, and as well as wage war against fake journalists in the FCT, emerged unopposed alongside the other candidates.
Speaking shortly after their inauguration, the new Chairman said himself and the outgone executives had to rescue the Chapel three years ago from the hands of those who wanted to trade with it and bring the image and reputation of the journalism profession into disrepute.
“But today we did not regret any of our actions because we have brought the Chapel on the path of honour. I am proud and happy to tell you today that we are one of the vibrant, active and performing Chapels in the FCT Council.
“We have organised and participated in different novelty football matches and table tennis tournaments and won medals, though we did not win the trophy.
“We have organised intellectual programmes such as lectures, symposia, correspondents roundtables, medical check-ups and health talks for our members. We achieved these within 3 years despite the scourge of the Covid-19 pandemic,” he said.
Listing out his agenda for the new executives, the Chairman said the Chapel under his leadership will focus on training and capacity building for members, just as he expressed determination to stamp out fake journalism and tackle acts of violence targeted at journalists by security operatives in the FCT.
Meanwhile, in his remarks, Comrade Emmanuel Ogbeche, Chairman of the NUJ FCT Council charged the new executives to conduct a by-election to fill the vacant positions of Assistant Secretary, Financial Secretary and Auditor within 90 days.
Contestants for the positions left vacant were not able to scale through the screening exercise, as they were disqualified on various grounds in conformity with the NUJ constitution.
TNG reports the election was conducted by Mr Henry Omunu as Chairman of the credentials committee and Mr Ediri Oyibo as Secretary of the committee, under the supervision of the NUJ FCT Council. Other members of the committee are Henrietta Momodu, Lois Otse Adams and Amadin Uyi.
