MY POSITION ON THE JUST CONCLUDED ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIAN AUTHORS (ANA) ELECTION 2023
I have received phone-calls from various quarters home and abroad requesting me to tell them my position on the Association of Nigerian Authors elections under controversy that took place on November 4, 2023, in which I contested for the office of the president.
The rationale behind my silence has been three-fold.
First, I intended to protect the image of the association from any collateral damage.
Secondly, I am generally a highly principled person, a woman of my words; for I had promised ANA members that we would have a rancour-free and hitch-free handover.
Thirdly, I was a witness in Enugu convention 2019 to cataclysmic events that orchestrated the debacle that led to the ultimate fracture from which we have found difficult to heal.
However, since it appears matters have come to a head, I have no option left in my pack but to succumb to the pressure of keeping the records straight, as the cliché goes. And I sort of feel duty bound to tell my side of the story. I started feeling all was not well when I espied the massive deployment of police and DSS personnel armed to the hilt not without teargas.
Ordinarily, though ANA elections might have a hitch or wrangling, here and there, they tended to be violent free and would not underscore total militarization of ANA polity the way Camillus Ukah did.
There was no doubt whatsoever that I had a clear lead, for my popularity ran wild through the rank and file of ANA, from our venerated professors, elders, and the entire members.
It is said Ukah claimed I had no capacity when asked why he was not supporting me. But I have proved him wrong, because my campaign team has been assessed to have won the campaign activities for the elections. Like the former Nigerian President Jonathan’s meteoric rise from assistant lecturer to deputy governor to governor of Bayelsa State, to vice president to president of the federal republic of Nigeria, I humbly started as ANA Niger Vice Chairman unopposed, to chairman, National treasurer, and then vice president. Certainly, Ukah had scores to settle with his EXCO, because of their demand for Ukah to give account of expenditures.
Albeit, back to ANA election 2023 matter which is the theme of this write-up, (for I would not unnecessarily dwell on an issue of faux pas with the tendency of bringing down the association’s integrity), Ukah barred some of my contingent from Niger and other States from voting, claiming he did not see their images on the database, after they had remitted requisite charges. In the instant of Yobe State, he had claimed that the biography and autobiography were not ‘creative’. In the instant of Ondo state, there was total disenfranchisement as not a single author was allowed into the hall.
In other instances, he held works published on the net were not enough to make one a writer in spite of an argument to the contrary that ANA had launched a website for writers and what would become of it. Ukah went as far as voiding the former Chairman from Abia state whom he knew was my staunch supporter and a candidate for the post of National PRO south. But my relationship with some of the writer in Abia spans close to two decades and goes beyond ANA connections. That was what he did not know. Initially the current chairman of Oyo and Nassarawa chapters were not allowed in.
Ukah’s defilement and manipulation of the electoral process went as far as denting the image of ANA as an integral body of writers engaged in fertilization of ideas with writers beyond our local national boundary.
It is conventional for foreign writers to come visiting, as observers and learning from us. In the ANA elections 2023, Ukah at the gate personally barred foreign writers from entering the venue.
In fact, a Cameroonian writer, Sampson Nkwetatang ,who had been a regular attendee of ANA conventions without break since 2019 was refused entry and courtesy of our armed Department of State Security (DSS) men, short of abuse by Ukah who slammed the door to his face. Does this tell well of our image? This same person was even accommodated alongside other special guests by Camillus Ukah at the 2020 convention in Ilorin. Also, the chairman ANA Niger, Sulay Nsubong, was struck on his chest with a rifle, the former chairman ANA Abuja, Taiwo Akerele, was manhandled with injuries sustained.
By the mere reason that Professor Ernest Emenyonu, trustee of ANA, requested Ukah to respond to the various allegations leveled against him, he woke up in a start and struck his name off the list of trustees, claiming he was not a resident of Nigeria.
Though when Professor Emenyonu was appointed a trustee, he was residing abroad and up to this moment he often shuttles in and out of the country.
He made it look as if it was the congress who agreed to remove Professor Emenyonu’s name from the list of trustees, but we all know that that was an arranged move, as he refused to give the microphone to others during the AGM except his used and unsuspecting supporters.
I boldly demand here that ANA should as a matter of urgency reverse the illegal removal of Professor Ernest Emenyonu and Mabel Segun’s names from the list of ANA trustees, as ANA president does not have the power to tamper with the list of trustees who are the true owners of the association.
There was clear writing on the wall foreshadowing Ukah would tamper with election results, as some minutes to the commencement of the election, more policemen were drafted to the venue.
He even warned a baffled congress of writers that they would not find it interesting if he invited the armed policemen into the hall.
In fact, he went on to invite armed personnel from the Department of State Security (DSS) into the hall. It was succinct that Ukah was out to deploy DSS and policemen as thugs to intimidate voters and get the vote skewed in his preferred candidates’ favour. He had done terribly dirty things and he needed a new EXCO that would cover things up.
It is clear naiveté to contemplate all the line up from President to Ex-officio on Ukah’s side emerged victorious and not a single failed.
Yet it is on record that Ukah had said publicly (in the face of his EXCO and others) that not a single person from his EXCO whom he felt antagonistic would succeed him and he would do all within his powers, by hook or by crook, to ensure that none of the members of his EXCO made it back. So a day to the election, he constituted a rigging committee to do the rigging on the day of election.
This committee is constitutive of two state chapters serving chairmen, a candidate from the opposition, a professor and a few others (I can provide evidence in a court of law).
The night before the election, I heard that Camillus Ukah wanted to constitute an electoral committee before the election day.
So I went to his office to appeal to him not to do so, as this might constitute lack of transparency, but he blatantly and bluntly refused to listen to me. To cut matters short, the Accredited No of Voters was 209.
For the office of President, after the voting exercise, the total number of votes cast was 225: There were cases of multiple ballot papers doled out to voters, and they unwillingly issued such to some of our voters who honestly returned them to sham electoral officials handpicked by Ukah and raised objection to the anomaly.
But the so-called handpicked electoral committee chairman dismissed it as human error (I can provide evidence in a court of law).
It is also appalling to note that the so-called electoral committee deliberately did not supervise the voting process which gave room to over voting on the part of the opponent camp who had been deliberately given excess ballot papers.
It was the working of Providence that such excess ballot papers fell into the hands of a few others, hence our awareness of it.
In my presentation, I construe we can make out the following points:
There was an appearance of election into the various offices of ANA.
The election did not follow due process.Opposition voters were disenfranchised.
The congress was not properly constituted and was muffled.
The Electoral Body was not properly constituted.The votes were rigged to favour only those candidates of are favorites of the extant president.
The line drawn about who is a writer is now misty as on-line publications are discounted in an age when literature and every other thing has gone digital.In the light of the above, I make the following submission:
There is the need to review ANA constitution in relevant portions such as electoral matters and membership.
Cause the re-instating of Prof Ernest Emenyonu from Imo State and Mrs Mabel Segun from Lagos State on the Board of Trustees.
The 2023 Election to the various offices should be cancelled and a re-run ordered by an independent body to ensure legitimacy.
The problem with ANA is that we do not have a strong court to appeal matters of this sort and urgency. In the meantime,
I am still looking at the avenues to redress our case.
I am consulting with my lawyer, my supporters and fellow aspirants, ANA pals, elders and fans. But I would like to use this platform to commiserate with my fellow aspirants supporters and friends for any embarrassment encountered during the unfortunate fiasco.
I ask my fellow aspirants to take solace in the ability of our Trustees as arbiters and the ability of pens to seek justice for the association of the largest body of writers in Africa, as the pen is mightier than Ukah-and-cohorts’ swords of travesty. Accept assurances of my deep faith in ANA and the brotherhood of global writers.
Thanks,
Hajiya Farida Mohammed
2023 Presidential candidate, ANA.
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