Judicial rascality: SWAN spits fire, berates Isiguzo’s NUJ

The attention of the National Secretariat of the Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN) has been drawn to a purported statement circulating in the media requesting States’ council chairmen of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) to conduct election for SWAN chapters in their respective states.

Ordinarily, we would have ignored this latest misadventure as one of the futile efforts of the National leadership of the NUJ to delude itself of a non-existent control over SWAN, but because it is capable of sending wrong signals to members of the general public, we decided to put the records straight as follow:

1. SWAN is not a creation of the NUJ. SWAN existed long before it decided to affiliate with NUJ and also exercised its right to disaffiliate.
2. SWAN is a duly registered organization with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC).
3. NUJ does not and has never conducted elections for SWAN even when the Association was affiliated to it. The only role NUJ played was just mere observatory at the discretion of SWAN.
4. In all SWAN elections, the only body empowered to conduct an election is the SWAN Election Committee (SWANECO) as enshrined in Article 12(h)I(i) of SWAN Statute.
5. The SWAN Statute is very clear, the highest law making organ of the Association is the Full Council, which is made up of the NEC members and, the chairmen and secretaries of the chapters.
6. Therefore, it is clear that the National leadership of the NUJ has no role in the administration of SWAN and is once more on a shadow-chasing venture, which has become their preoccupation in recent times.
7. We are not surprised that the NUJ leadership having failed to use some disgruntled members to distract SWAN during the Triennial Delegates Conference in Port Harcourt in 2019, is once more on a journey of perdition.
8. It is surprising that the leadership of the NUJ that relied on clearly forged documents in an attempt to destroy SWAN, still pretends it has good intentions towards the Association.
9. As a law abiding organization, SWAN will not resort to forging of documents as the NUJ leadership unfortunately encouraged the black legs they wanted to use to destroy SWAN.
10. We challenge the leadership of the NUJ to publish any document to show that it has any authority over SWAN.
11. While we may not want to go to the gutters with the NUJ, SWAN will nonetheless be ready as a corporate entity engage the leadership of NUJ in an open debate concerning the relationship between the both bodies.

Finally, we enjoin our teeming members across the federation to ignore the so-called directive from a body that does not have the locus standi to do so.

All the chapters intending to conduct their periodic election should do so using the SWAN Statute as the guide.