The most anticipated election of the Nigerian Union of Journalists NBS chapel election has come and gone which was held under the supervision of the Nasarawa state chairman of the union, comrade Salihu Alkali, the state Chairperson of NAWOJ, national vice Chairman of NAWOJ and other chairmen of various chapels of the union.
Nasarawa Broadcasting Service NBS is said to be the largest in terms of membership of the Union with over seventy registered members who converged on NUJ press centre along Makurdi road Lafia to elect the new officials who will pilot the affairs of the union for the next three years.
Elanzanews report that the election was kenly contested after a strong campaigns by both the two teams, “Team Kana and Team Valentine” spearheaded by Moses John, the DG of Kana campaign organization while Smah George who tagged himself as Hybrid Digital Campaign DG to Team Valentine both engaged in campaigns to convince members to vote for their preferred candidates.
It was observed that before the election proper, members defied a heavy downpour and assembled at the venue of the election willing to cast their votes.
Former officials of the union were dissolved shortly after a brief speech by the outgone chairman, Alanana Tanko who served for six years and pleaded for calm while exercising their rights through voting.
The election was held transparently with Team Valentine swept all the seven positions while Team Kana lost in the contest with no positions won despite house to house campaigns, wide consultation and assurances by individual members to vote Team Kana, a situation which was sensed to be an act of betrayal and sabotage.
Declaring the election results, Chairman of the electoral committee, Grace Amirikpa, revealed that Valentine Joshua emerged victorious as chairman having defeated Yakubu Kana with 37 votes against 28 votes.
The position of the vice president, Maryam Addra defeated Grace Gideon 41 votes against 24 vote cast, while the position of financial secretary was contested between Abdulllahi Ibn Umar and Umar Ibrahim, where Umar Ibrahim won with 39 votes while Ibn Umar scored 27 votes.
The secretary position went to Zainab Olose, who recorded 39 votes to defeat Kyune Zwebe who got 27 votes while Godwin Gwatana emerged as assistant secretary with 36 votes against Abubakar Isha Karai with 30 votes.
Safiya Salihu Yakubu, emerged as treasurer with 40 votes against her opponent Safiya Safiyanu who scored 25 votes while the position of Auditor general went to Philip Anji who garnered 36 votes against Abdullahi Umar with 30 votes respectively.
The representative of the executive vice Chairman of Nasarawa Broadcasting Service NBS, Mr. Rajab Okposhi, commended the staff for exhibiting high sense of maturity during the conduct of the election, emphasizing that the welfare of staff is one of the management priority.
In his acceptance speech, the new chairman, Nigeria Union of Journalists NBS Chapel, Comrade Valentine Joshua, thanked members for trusting them with the mandate to serve and promised to operate an open door administration where everyone would contribute for the development of the association.
