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The Caretaker Committee of the Nigeria Union of Journalists Imo State Council has commended and expressed appreciation to the governor of Imo State Senator Hope Uzodinma for authorizing the re-instatement of the suspended nursing mother, and staff of the Imo Broadcasting Corporation and Imo State Chairman of National Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ) Barrister Vivan Ottih who was punished for being in the fore front of demand of arrears of salaries owed the workers of the corporation.
A statement issued and signed by the Chairman and Secretary of the Caretaker Committee of the NUJ Imo State chapter, Comrades Precious Nwadike and Austin Okoro respectively reacts as follows “the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Imo State Council has received with joy the reinstatement of Barr. Vivian Ottih, the nursing mother who was suspended for demanding her salary and that of her colleagues in the Imo Broadcasting Corporation in 2020.
Barr Ottih, the re-elected Chairman of the National Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ), Imo State Chapter was among those who opposed the criminal attempt to sell off the Imo NUJ Secretariat by the duo of Mr Chris Akaronye and Mr Innocent Igwe to a former governor with the tacit support of the National President Chris Isiguzo. We understand that Emelumba, upon emergence as Commissioner for Information endorsed the criminal action and aligned himself with the activities of the vandals and fraudsters who succeeded in cajoling him into taking up a belligerent and antagonistic stance against practicing journalists in Imo State.
The Union however considers Ottih’s reinstatement as a welcome and healthy development and heartily commends the Governor, Senator Hope Uzodinma for his fatherly understanding, in seeing through Emelumba’s primitive rhetoric, and decisively addressing one of the issues raised in our seven-page letter to him.
We salute him for taking a stand for justice.
In the same vein, we wish to appreciate all state and non-state actors who have shown genuine interest in understanding the true situation in the Union’s face-off with the Commissioner for Information, Mr Declan Emelumba who has all along been obsessed with blackmailing Imo journalists and undermining journalism practise in Imo state, those who have gone the whole hog to intervene and give mileage to the struggle to reclaim our union and practice from vandals, impostors and unscrupulous travelers”.
