My Distaste For Professionals’ Association Or Trade Union In Nigeria

By A. S. M. Jimoh

As a graduate of engineering, I have never had the interest of being a member of my professional body. Over time, I have scrutinized many professionals’ associations and their conduct, what I came up with is that trade unions in Nigeria are formed to promote misconduct among their members. Trade union or professionals’ Association is also a money making venture for its officials.

That is why people spend fortune or even kill to become the leader of these bodies in Nigeria. From the motor park union of National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) or Road Transport Employees Association of Nigeria (RTEAN) to the professional bodies of Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) or Nigeria Medical Association (NMA), it is same goal: to protect the interest of our members even if such a member is a criminal.

While I am not here to convince anyone to drop out from being a member of professional body or trade union, but I am going to demonstrate with specific events that have further alienate me from joining any Nigeria professional association.

In 2003, a group of nurse beat an old female patient at Okene General Hospital, hauled her from her hospital bed to detention at the police station. Her crime? Her grown up son had refused to participate in a so-called sanitation exercise organized by the hospital. The case got to the court as they insisted on teaching the woman and her son a lesson of life.  On the day of the court proceeding, the umbrella body of nurse and midwives, National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives (NANMW) shut down hospitals cross local governments to attend the proceeding.  Nurses who were supposed to be at duty post abandoned patients to show solidarity with a wicked colleague. Is this what trade union is all about?  Instead of NANMW to sanction their members who proliferate pharmaceutical stores selling substandard drugs, they rather defend the wicked conduct of their members.

Fast forward to February 2016, a certain Ricky Tarfa (SAN) was charged by the Nigeria anti-corruption agency for obstruction of justice and for being a bribe carrier within the judicial circle. Instead of his professional body members, SAN, the very people who are to be more schooled in law, to wit, discipline and morality, to carry out an in-house investigation to ascertain the fact of the case, they rather trooped to the court to intimidate the judge and subtly obstructing justice, the very crime their colleague is being charged with. It leaves you with no hope when people who are supposed to be the personification of justice now congregate to pervert it in the guise of solidarity with a professional colleague charge in criminal suit. Well, more revelations coming out are that there are more Ricky Tarfas among SAN than there are the like of Femi Falana. Alas! Who our SANs are have been revealed.

Challenges Awaiting Kogi Governor-Elect, Bello

By A. S. M. Jimoh

The Kogi state gubernatorial election has come and gone, but the controversy that trailed it has refused to die. The whole scenario of the election has taught us important lessons. It has shown that power truly belongs to God, a cliché often use by our politician but never live by it. Secondly, our effort alone can never earn us our goal. We need a touch of the Divine.

*Yahaya Bello

While there are losses, angers, victories and jubilations, the man who smiles most is one young Alhaji Yahaya Bello, born approximately forty years ago. Following the death of Alhaji Audu Abubakar, him being the runner-up in the primary was picked by the party through constitutional provision to be Audu’s replacement. He is now the Governor-elect. If Allah wills, he will take the mantle of leadership of Kogi state on the 27th of January 2016.

Because of the triviality and complexity that surround Kogi politics, he will be navigating a very turbulent water. He will be faced by ethnic distrust and a comatose state with nothing to show in term of infrastructure and other indices of development. Nevertheless, if he has the mettle, he will sail through the troubled water to safety unscathed. For a man who deployed enormous resources to campaign, make promises, went to primary and finally winning the governorship, it is assumed that he has the vision to lead the state out of its current direction to an intensive care unit. But recent history has shown that many our politicians only invest in campaign, make promises, pretend a vision and when he/she wins, he/she turns out to be worse than a highway armed-robber and a pillaging army. Alhaji Yahaya Bello must show he is different.