The National President of the Association of Nigerian Authors, ANA, Ahmed Maiwada, has rejected the move a factional members of the association to conduct another election into the National Executive Council of the association in Benue State.
DAILY NIGERIAN reports that a group of writers, purporting themselves to the association’s Electoral Committee, had planned to convene at Makurdi, Benue State Capital, on Saturday (tomorrow) to conduct elections into ANA’s National Executive Council.
However, Mr Maiwada, in a statement he personally signed on Friday, disowned these writers, saying that ANA does not recognize any ‘Electoral Committee’ apart from the one constituted during the November 2019 Enugu Convention which, according to him, had conducted its elections in March 2020.
The President, therefore, called on member of the association to steer clear of the said event, “in order to avoid becoming an innocent victim when law enforcement agencies are taking action towards stopping this crime from being committed”.
The statement read: “My attention has just been drawn to a plan by a group of persons who have slated a gathering in Makurdi, Benue State on Saturday, 18th July 2020, for the sole purpose of conducting elections into the National Executive Council of ANA, and as the substantive President of the Registered Trustees of the Association of Nigerian Authors, I wish to state as follows:
“That, apart from the Electoral Committee constituted during the Enugu Convention in November 2019, ANA does not recognise any other Electoral Committee for the purpose of conducting elections into its National Executive Council;
“That ANA Constitution has provided for a maximum period of 180 days within which to hold elections into the National Executive Council of ANA, upon failure by the association to conduct the said elections at any given convention;
“That the Electoral Committee constituted by the General Congress of ANA (as reconstituted by the body fully delegated with the power to supervise the elections, i.e., the Chapter Chairmen) had conducted elections into the National Executive Council of ANA in the month of March 2020, within the mandatory 180 days prescribed by our Constitution;
“That in view of this, there is no vacancy for any office in the National Executive Council of ANA for anybody to conduct any election into;
“That there is a pending court action that makes it illegal for anybody to participate in the planned elections to be conducted on Saturday, 18th July 2020 in Makurdi.”
According to him, relevant authorities have been put on notice to halt the writers who are “hell-bent on taking the path of self-help and thereby committing contempt of court”.
