Nuj Borno council, post election thoughts, functional committees of progress and the need to hurry up

Sam Kayode

Now that the long awaited election of a new council executive has come and gone, one’s greatest fear has been, how to break the obvious ice of disunity among some categories of members. Well like the partisans, Nigerians always find a way to unify among common interests sometimes before, during or after their own elections. In the case of the Borno council of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), I believe the desired unification is going on well, but if there are any remnants of anger remaining, within our great union, it’s time for such comrades to bring in their own input so our new council will work effectively again. It’s attainable if we are ready to rise above certain mediocre idiosyncrasies associated with the way things were done before.

That certain wrong things were done this or that way before does not make it correct. The most correct phenomenon in this short life of ours given by our creator is change. So one will expect colleagues to adjust to “change” accordingly and appropriately. Before now, the chairmen were over burdened with too many activities even more than they can chew. A press center committee was set up in the last dispensation and one thing led to another the chairperson had to leave her station the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) for the University of Maiduguri. The rest is history because much was not gotten from them as dividends. As a matter of fact, there has not been any strong press Centre committee activity in the executives I have witnessed from comrades Kakami, Baba Shek, Talba and even till date.
This is why an active press centre committee is needed to give members dividends of democracy. We cannot continue to do things the same old way gentlemen. This is why we must be in a hurry to fix our own now so our chairman Dauda Ilya can have time to carry out his duties as a reporter since he obviously did not ask for a “leave of absence” for him to do his job effectively.

Time to inaugurate relevant committees

Its time for the various committees to roll in and start work. It’s a deal we signed verbally during our campaigns that we will bring everyone on board to proffer solutions to our acts as comrades in the press Centre. As a result, over burdening the chairman and his executives unnecessarily with petty assignments like fixing bulbs that should be handled by the secretary of such a committee, will not give them ample room to think about what next which the chair should be involved in using his capacity and willpower to think along side his executives following after his campaign promises for his colleagues.

Press centre committee

One of such a vital committee in my mind’s eye is the “press centre committee”. It is not right for the chairman of the union to be the one to rush to the office of Yola electricity at Monday market for instance to fix our electricity supplies whenever it is cut. His duty if he visits the office of the regional manager is to seek partnership to benefit members and nothing more. There are so many resources out there for us to harvest and that is what we expect the chairman and his team to go after because we cannot continue to rely only on the government all the time.
Paying electricity bills is the function of the press Centre committee. They should off course do this in conjunction with the secretary who is the head of the secretariat, fixer of the nuts and bolts and keeper of all files and documents belonging to the union. It is the press center committee that will be generating desired funds and remitting same to the treasurer. The advantage of this is that too much of familiarity has been created between the exco members and the shop owners, the committee would not show them how whitish or brownish their teeth are. They should have a complete statistics of the rent payers and how much is generated. The committee system had existed in all the articles of constitutions I have seen and read from Sani Zoro’s Era to the present Era. Borno is backwards because they rely too much on the exco system other than allowing the committee to do the dirty job and cleaning the stable for them after if mistakes are made.

Ethics committee

If a colleague runs foul of our constitution, the ethics committee should be there to handle it. As a matter of fact, I understand the names of members of this committee have been penciled but we don’t know what is causing the delay in their inauguration because such committees are not driven by gratis or honorarium. As a matter of fact, this committee is supposed to be extremely independent because they owe their allegiances mostly to the letters of the constitution so that they are not found to be below board or siding with any side of a conflict which will obviously jeopardize the result they will turn over to the council. Members of this committee must also be knowledgeable about the constitutional way things are done at the national level so they don’t fall into the weakness of na so we de do am. If a colleague decides to drink heavy alcohol and disgrace the profession in a public place by doing wrong things, it’s this committee that will handle such a petition from the public and make recommendations to congress. The ethics committee are advocators always dressing well and living above board. They cannot be found in a beer parlor guzzling alcohol at “artillery” till midnight because that will deem their status in the eyes of ordinary colleagues who still behave sheepishly in this part of the country.

Welfare committee

When a member is assaulted physically or battered by an irate crowd in a bid to carry out his or her constitutional duty, the welfare committee chair and his or her people should be at the spot to douse the tension. It is they who should be the first set of people to visit that member before intimating the chair and exco about the state of affairs of the wounded or slain colleagues. At the end of the day if congress is to be alerted by a press release of what really happened, it is them that would write such a release in conjunction with the secretary which would be signed by the chairman. There is a need for the treasurer to be a natural member of the welfare committee because of her crucial roles concerning payments of hospital bills or sourcing for funds to bury a colleague in case such a Comrade male or female has paid the Supreme sacrifice.

Nobody knows tomorrow, especially the outcome of the insurgency we are battling with. That makes Borno peculiar and such a committee “must” exist to carry out that role. Committees are not meant to make members of exco jobless so to speak but they will be doing their natural duties we elected them from alongside the new roles given to them as committee chairmen. The two ex official members are also natural members that should be shared among such committees. We don’t expect the ethics committee to be completed without the only serving lawyer in the executive Comrade Abdulsalam. That would help a lot when we have challenges related with the public where our colleagues are involved deeply. The case of N14 million land sale is purely an ethical issue and they should have been in the fore front for the ethics committee instead of the exco directly which can bring bad blood. Therefore who ever thinks this is not necessary needs to search each or her brain to understand the peculiarities of Borno. The capacity of the chair of this team is vital and fundamental. He or she cannot be thinking inside the box and hope to succeed. Far from it.

Needed attraction of members to the center through more food and drinks outlets.

So many challenges need to be fixed to move the Press Centre from where we met it to where it should be by the time the Chairman Dauda Ilya led executives will finish their first term in office. And one of those is the provision of steady electricity supplies beyond the national grid. And to do this, solar panels have been one of the options on our campaign plan B which I believe many of us will be excited about. It must be done quickly before the heat season heads for its peak. As a matter of fact, this is the only reason why colleagues will become regular visitors to the main hall or any study corner to relax or work as expected. The chairman of this 5,6 or 7 men committee from the 7 chapels does not need to ask a kobo from congress to work after a take off grant. The greatest support they need is capacity to do the job and not been spoon fed with honorarium from congress. Any one who doesn’t know how to think outside the box should not be allowed to be a member of the press Centre committee as if it’s job for the boys because we worked for the victory of the current exco.

Job for the boys syndrome is the most disgusting thing to keep in your mindset if you want to work for everyone say in the area of security. You must think outside the box and get solar panels to boast electricity in the place.
The Yola electricity is obviously the plan A and we must do whatever we can to make a plan B happen. We must look for a digital meter for instance which I learnt from the zonal manager will be installed free of charge. We must also extricate our power consumption from that of the shop owners outside the building. They must get their meters too. These are some of the duties of the committee which must be stamped.

It’s up to the exco to work on the plan on ground to have a permanent shopping complex that will outlive all of us. The plan is already on ground as created by chairman Baba Shek and his exco, so we don’t need to look further for a plan. All we need is to start saving towards building our shopping complex.

More food outlet is another plan and the earlier we do something about good quality food the better. Not excessive maggi from indomie noodles. If you want to know why people don’t go there regularly it’s because of the lack of “variety” of food. It’s really dumb and insulting for anyone to sit down in his corner and assume that we already have enough food outlets. Other press Centres have up to 20 or 30 food outlets which has turned their Centres to variety point for civil and the military society to patronize them. This is the only way we can have competition. The essence for increasing the food outlets is to bring the standard and quality we are being served by creating competition. Even when the Nawojians take over, they must be given competitions so that they do not drop their guards and start taking us for granted. That is how business is run. You don’t piety people in businesses. You take proactive steps to safeguard the future. Good food is beyond painting the buildings and putting Ac. It goes beyond maggi poisoning that we relish now as food. How can we be productive if we don’t have good food? And who says it’s only in your home you should get good food devoid of all these poisons we eat?
Create a variety for food and watch the difference in the crowd flow from members to non members.

Partner with Hebron and other food vendors people visit in town and the pool of customers at our backyard in the UN hub who leave us to Hebron and Co will begin to stop by and we will begin to see the fruits of our turnaround. If you want the coolest drinks in town the best partner to look for is “today’s” and you will be glad we did. Gentlemen it’s time for us to think outside the box so that our exco do not begin to loose capacity steam thinking of how to please us besides their primary duties in their various media houses. I agree that some colleagues are mere lame ducks without capacity to back their certifications but most are loaded with ideas but are inhibited because nobody will listen to the right thing.

As for our dear pepper soup varieties, we are yet to get it right not to talk of snacks. Life at the press Centre is not just about beer drinking. It’s a variety of good food and clean people with clean brand new toilets at the beck and call of our visitors from outside. Think about this gentlemen as we prepare for the first press week organized by the Dauda Ilya led council of Borno State.

Let me use this opportunity to sympathize with many of our colleagues who have friends and relatives who lost out in the Monday market tragedy. May God console them even as the government and stake holders plan to bring them back to their feet. Amen.

Nuj Borno council, post election thoughts, functional committees of progress and the need to hurry up