Geoffrey Anyanwu, Enugu
The actions of members of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Enugu State Branch, fortnight ago where they threw decorum to the dust and fought like ordinary thugs have continued to generate discussions in the state.
Consequently, it has been accusations and counter-accusations from the members and the major actors in the show of shame.
While one group blamed the immediate past Chairman, Dr Ike Okwesili for the clash, claiming that he wanted to impose a candidate on the association by plotting to disenfranchise the members from ESUTH Parklane, another group heaped the blame on the ESUTH Parklane members who they said wanted to vote at all costs when they were not eligible by failing to pay their dues.
Court order
In the heat of the problem, one of the groups came up with a court order, which was found to have emanated from a Magistrate Court said to lack the powers to issue such orders. According to a lawyer, it has already been established that the Magistrate Court has no power of any kind to dabble into association internal issues, adding that it is only a federal high court that can do so. So, some of them are blaming the judiciary for the crisis.
Before the election
The crisis in the association is said to have started on the quest of who will take over from Dr Okwesili. It got worse with the resolve of the Resident doctors who are in the majority vowing to wrest the chairmanship from the Consultants who they said took it as their birth right.
Unfortunately, the ESUT Parklane unit which has a large population in the entire state was alleged to have not been faithful in their financial obligations to the association though they got some concessions from the former leadership, but when a “Pharaoh came that does not know Joseph” the narrative changed.
According to the Treasurer of NMA, Enugu East Zone, Dr Uzowulu Rosemary, who also was the former Financial Secretary of the association in the state from 2015 till 2018, Dr Okwesili was being vilified for no just cause.
She said: “Since 2015 till now I have been in the financial circle of NMA Enugu State, so I am conversant with all the facts that led to this crisis. The current crisis was a mere act of rascality of few doctors who have failed to recognize the constitution of the association they were into. Now, this issue is very simple since 2018 when this present leadership of Dr Ike Okwesili assumed office; he told every other doctor in Enugu State that he is out for accountability and transparency, and that he will not go to do anything about it.
“They thought he was playing because in the past they believe in going to do PR to NMA leadership and it would waive certain things for them. But this time around the young man said no, let the proper thing be done; if you have any dues or levies owed NMA, please pay it because we are practicing individual membership in NMA constitution.”
He said that every payment owed the association must be completed before May 30, which proceeds any election period.
“Now ARD ESUT-Parklane rested and refused to remit the money they were deducting from their members from the source where their salary was coming from. This matter has lingered over the years and this present chairman said you cannot continue in this impunity. I want everybody to remit their dues. So, since they have refused to pay the money he set up a disciplinary committee and referred ARD Parklane leadership to the committee for them to explain why they will collect money from their members’ salaries and would refuse to remit such.
“The ARD President then, Ani Okechukwu, came to the disciplinary committee and told them in writing that he has over 230, that his congress members say he should be using the monies to take care of himself. The committee said so your congress members were aiding and abetting what you are doing. The NMA held series of AGM, EGM debates on this issue and finally got their leaders suspended. An official letter was written to the ARD Parklane congress notifying the members so that they will not say they were not aware; informing them that they are not financial members of NMA and as such they will lose every right and privileges that they have which include ‘to vote and to be voted for’.
“Now they have their zonal election, this same Ike Okwesili disfranchised every member of Parklane from participating from that zonal election in 2018; so, it didn’t start today. He did not allow any of them to vote because of these dues. As at that November 2018, when we had the zonal election till date they didn’t find it necessary to go and sort out these dues on their own, they waited and now when they have interest in this NMA state election they started making some payment.
“Now the money they owed has accumulated to over N10 million and the chairman told them that they will clear this debt because this is money you have already collected. Now, they started weeping crocodile tears and started calling people that Ike Okwesili doesn’t want them to participate in the election,” he said.
However, it was said that this stand of Okwesili led to his purported suspension two weeks to the end of his tenure by some members of the state NMA who announced that they had suspended him over alleged gross misconduct and abuse of office and appointed the Deputy Vice Chairman Enugu East, Dr Kinsley Ugwuonye, as acting chairman.
But the state executive in reaction to the announcement said: “We are heavily dismayed by these unwholesome, fraudulent and embarrassing activities of these individuals who have even gone ahead to issue a press release with a cloned letter head of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Enugu State, a criminal act which violates all extant laws of the land, MDCN Act and Nigerian Medical Association (NMA).”
Disagreeing with the former Financial Secretary, a member from UNTH, Dr Okam Izu said that there were weighty financial misappropriations against Okwesili, which informed his decision “to make spirited attempt to manipulate the election to favour Dr Akpeh, a chairmanship candidate who stepped down for him during the chairmanship election in 2018. Dr Akpeh was an integral member of Dr Okwesili’s leadership who chaired the Public Health programme and anti-quackery team. Dr Akpeh is a Consultant ENT surgeon in UNTH and Dr Okwesili is a Consultant Orthopedic Surgeon in UNTH. His challenger, Dr JOT Onyia is a Senior Registrar in Pediatrics ESUT Parklane. Dr Okwesili hatched out a game plan of disqualifying the entire ESUT Parklane so as to give Dr Akpeh from UNTH an undue advantage.
“ESUT Parklane had a premonition of this plan and they tried everything within their capacity to mend fences with NMA and Dr Okwesili single handedly constituted a stumbling block to the peace in NMA. Three past regimes in NMA struck a deal with NMA to be paying only for 100 members because of their poor remuneration and fluctuations in numerical strength. The association under these regimes allowed Parklane to enjoy their full rights and privileges over the past six years.
“Dr Okwesili came on board in July 2018 and decided to abolish that arrangement. He collected the cheque for 100 people last in March, 2019 and insisted that their dues must be deducted from source and credited directly into NMA account. ARD Parklane instituted the process of deduction from source, which was very rigorous process. The deduction from source finally commenced on October, 2019 till date.
“Despite the commencement of full strength deduction from source, Dr Okwesili denied ARD Parklane their rights and privileges till date. He insisted that ARD Parklane must offset all they are owed to NMA before they will participate in NMA activity. Several meetings were held between the leadership of NMA Enugu zone, ARD Parklane, MDCAN Parklane and Dr Okwesili to broker peace. They proposed a model where the arrears of dues to NMA will be paid by installments over one year, but Dr Okwesili refused and insisted that it must be paid in full before Parklane could participate in NMA activities. NMA state executive council meeting was summoned to discuss the issue and Dr Okwesili used his veto power to call the meeting to an abrupt end when the issue was being discussed.
“After the incident of Dr Okwesili’s suspension, there were several pleas by elders to allow peace to reign so that we will have a peaceful transition. The climax of the peace process was a round table conference at the instance of the Commissioner of Police Enugu between the two factions of NMA leadership on 6th August, 2020. The commissioner sued for peace and advised Dr Okwesili to review the issue of Parklane and find a middle ground and they encouraged us to respect the nobility of the association and conduct a peaceful election.
“After the dissolution of the exco and appointment of returning officer for election, the returning officer struck a deal with ARD Parklane that they will divide the total amount of what they have contributed over two years by the total amount of dues an individual member was supposed to pay over two years to arrive at the number of people that will be allowed to vote. The calculation gave about 106 eligible voters and they were advised to get 106 names out of almost 300 members of ARD Parklane with a condition that members on ground numbering more than 106 must accept the decision.
“The ARD president held a brief meeting with members on ground and they agreed. The ARD president generated 106 names and handed it over to the returning officer, Dr Agunwa who said he will meet briefly with other members of the electoral panel. After their brief meeting, the Returning Officer said that they have concluded that ARD Parklane will not vote because the issue should have been sorted out before now. This led to a hot exchange of words between him and ARD Parklane and security officials waded in. They took time to advise the returning officer who later agreed to allow the 106 names to vote and he asked them to line up.
“Immediately he received a call from Dr Okwesili and after that call he rescinded his decision to allow Parklane to vote. ARD Parklane started demonstrating peacefully and Dr Okwesili took advantage of the process and rushed the ballot box containing the chairmanship vote. The security agents and people rushed him and this led to the scattering of ballot box and papers and disruption of the process.”
But a member of the state NMA who is a Consultant at ESUTH Teaching Hospital, Parklane Enugu and who pleaded anonymity speaking on the issue that caused problem said: “It is because of election and you know when it comes to election people have their hidden agenda. You know financial members are supposed to remit the dues, but for sometime, the ESUTH Resident Doctors have not been remitting their dues which made the NMA chairman to run the association with only UNTH dues. Though previous leadership condoned them, but this time around, the chairman said he will use the full weight of the law against them, that if you are not a financial member you are not supposed to vote on the election day.
“The problem is not that they do not collect the money, the leaders of the association collect and remit very little to the association and use the rest for their personal business. So, when the state chairman made that pronouncement, they started to remit a fraction, so now that the election has come the body said that you remitted a fraction, we will check the number of persons that, that fraction represents and you will give us list for that number of persons who will come and vote. When it was checked it came to about 106, they brought the list, but those their names did not appear in the list started causing problem.”
Major actors
While Dr Okwesili refused to speak on the issue because he said the National has waded into it by constituting a committee that would start sitting tomorrow, one of the candidates in the election, Dr Tony Onyia said that he want a free and fair election and for the peace in the association to be restored.
He said: “The basic problem here is that the outgone chairman wanted to impose my opponent on our members by all means. He claimed that my opponent stepped down for him two years ago and they had an agreement that after he finishes that he will hand over to him. Based on this he decided to disenfranchise the whole of ORD Parklane from participating in that election and all moves, all warnings, all pleads to him fell on deaf ears. Even when Parklane, he claimed that they were not financially eligible, even when they have contributed almost N7 million as dues to NMA Enugu State.
“We thought it was a joke, but when we came on that day, first and foremost he unconstitutionally appointed the Electoral Committee Chairman. Our constitution said that State Executive Council (SEC) will nominate three people and present to AGM and the AGM will select one person and ratify him, but rather what he did was to go to his friend, someone he can manipulate and told him he will be the Electoral Committee chairman, he never had an exco meeting nor presented the man at the AGM and, of course, during the election he kept manipulating the man. Because the Electoral Committee Chairman three times agreed that Parklane will vote and three times he rescinded based on influence of the outgoing chairman, the last time after keeping those doctors in the sun for seven hours he told them that they will not vote and at that point they started chanting, ‘we must vote’ and immediately they started chanting, the outgone chairman rushed and carried the ballot box of the chairman. When he carried the box, the doctors rushed him and in the cause of dragging the box the whole thing scattered and the election was disrupted. People tore the ballot papers, threw some into the gutter and it was at that point that I left the venue.
“Now, after a while he picked the papers from the floor which I tried to resist, but the police assured me that there is nothing that they can do with those papers, that the election has been disrupted, little did we know that the outgone chairman has plans to continue with collating the result with the few papers they had collected from the ground. He had other plans to rig the election and so they moved to TOSCANA Hotel, unfortunately with the backing of the DSS, because when we got the information and went there we saw DSS officials filled in two trucks. We went into the hall where they were collating the result, lo and behold, they were filling the blank ballot papers, which were not used and stuffing the ballot box. That was when we came in and immediately, the out gone chairman saw us, he jumped through the window and ran away. He wanted to run with the ballot box, but we held him, we held the ballot box and he jumped through the window and ran away. At least we were able to stop that.”
Going forward
The national body has set up a three-man fact finding committee to look into the matter, they will arrive in Enugu this weekend to begin their work tomorrow (Monday).