Former NUJ Chief Rubbishes Sen Adeyemi’s Guber Ambition

• Taunts him as electoral liability for APC
• Says lawmaker uses and dumps people
• Urges repentance before eyeing Govt House

BY SEGUN ADEBAYO – A former Vice President of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Zone D, Comrade Tims Ejigah, has thrashed Senator Smart Adeyemi as an individual with a character baggage, having no capacity and goodwill to secure electoral victory for any political party in the current dispensation.

Similarly, he described the lawmaker, who represents Kogi West Senatorial District in the National Assembly, as someone with the habit of using and dumping those who have assisted him so far in the political journey of life.

Comrade Ejigah, a one-time close associate of Adeyemi as the then the two-term NUJ President and later his sojourn into national politics, said regrettably there are no good records within the Union and among most members to speak positively about the Kogi-born Senator.

Addressing journalists at the NUJ Secretariat in Lokoja, the Kogi State capital, Comrade Ejigah said it is laughable for Adeyemi to declare interest in the Kogi State gubernatorial race, noting that if elections were held today with only journalists as voters, over 80 per cent of the votes would be against the Senator.

The veteran journalist said any party that would mistakenly give its governorship ticket to the lawmaker will be committing political suicide in the Confluence State.

He said; “Whichever party he is struggling to get their ticket, he would be wasting that ticket if he emerges candidate. I am not God, but I say this based on his antecedents of use and dump tactics. If peradventure, he gets the APC ticket, it would be an exercise in futility. I’m not God.”

The former NUJ VP, who went down memory lane, said; “Coming to our profession, if Smart Adeyemi wants journalists, serving, retired or veterans as we call ourselves, to vote for him for anything, he cannot have majority of votes. That I can tell you. He cannot get majority of practising members or members of the Union to mobilise for anything he wants. And I am happy most of us have our PVCs.”

Further recalling Adeyemi’s emergence as NUJ President and alleged dumping of those who stood by him all through his Unionism days, Comrade Ejigah said; “I was one of the arrow heads of Smart Adeyemi’s activism which culminated in his emerging as the National President of NUJ. It all started from Ibadan in 1997, where he contested as Vice President, Zone D and I also contested the position of National Auditor of the Union.

“Every Journalist in the country knows my loyalty and support for him. I want to say without any fear of contradiction that our former president (Adeyemi) is not the type that keeps relationships and I want to say that most of us who were his foot soldiers like the late Ndagene Aku who later became NUJ President, Waheed Odusile, former NUJ President, still alive; Victor Oluwadamire, Chairman, NUJ, Oyo State Council, Dr Effiong Okon, National Officer/National Trustee, when I was National Auditor; Fred Fabo, former National Deputy President; Abia Onyike, former National Deputy President, and Amos Dunia et al; all would say that the man behaves as if we were not the ones that festered his nets, including a very powerful NUJ Unionist, Funke Fadugba.

“This is to give you a background of our support and loyalty to this young man, today, a distinguished senator.”

Ejigah, who also spoke on the allegation that Adeyemi uses and dumps people, said; “The man is somebody who, when he wants you to do anything for him, can stoop to whatever level to get that thing done and then turn his back after”, even as he also berated Senator Adeyemi for being a perfect fit into the analogy of those who will drink the palm wine and break the keg, so that the keg would not be available for the next person.

Also disclosing he was among those who advised Adeyemi on his exit as NUJ President to head for the National Assembly rather than eyeing the Kogi State governorship seat then occupied by late Abubakar Audu, Ejigah said this was informed by the fact that he (Smart) was a major beneficiary of Audu’s administration.

He said unfortunately the same Smart was later to bite the fingers that fed him by berating Audu, adding; “You would remember the various campaigns of calumny by Smart against late Governor Audu in the very eyes of the man before he died, calling him emperor and all. How would you do a thing like that for someone that you benefitted from very well.

“You would also recall how the current administration of (Governor) Yahaya Bello of APC recruited him from the PDP and gave him a third term in the Senate. Are they still singing Hosanna?” he said.

Further taking the Kogi Senator to the cleaners, the ex-NUJ Vice President urged Adeyemi to retrace his steps by first redeeming his image within the NUJ family before thinking of Kogi State Government House, lamenting that Adeyemi’s case is so bad that he does not even have any signature project in the NUJ Kogi council secretariat.

“I remember anytime he wants to do anything, he runs here to mobilise our colleagues and when I watch you, I laugh. Point blank, I expected that what Mohammed Garba has done in Kano, he should have been the first person to do it here

“Mohammed Garba, former President of NUJ, two terms like himself, has a plaza to the glory of Kano NUJ. This man (Adeyemi) has no kitchenette here. I don’t think NUJ members in Kogi State, practising or retired, would give him support in what he is looking for. Charity, they say, begins at home”.

“Everywhere you go, you see the signatures of past presidents in their local councils. You would see a State Assembly legislator’s project in the Oyo State Secretariat and so on. Where is that of our former president? An illustrious son of Kogi State?”, the former Union Chieftain queried.