Some concerned members of the Radio Television Theatre And Art Workers Union (RATTAWU) have accused the union’s president, Comrade Garba Kabir of perpetrating illegality to impose himself for a second term in office.
They said four months to the national delegates’ conference of the union, neither the guidelines nor modalities for the conference had been made public owing to an alleged plot by the president to remain in office against the wishes of financial members of the union.
But in a swift reaction, Comrade Kabir denied the allegations, describing them as being ignorant of the constitution of the union.
Raising concerns over the alleged imposition, the members alleged the union’s president single unilaterally altered 50 items in the Constitution of the union for his selfish interest.
The group further alleged that in rule 4 (1) of the amended constitution, page 11, the duties and functions of the national PRO of the union was omitted.
They also accused the union leader of purchasing an official vehicle worth N28 million without the approval of the Central Working Committee (CWC).
“Apart from prematurely altering the Union’s 2003 Constitution tempering with more than 50 items single handed by the President, giving birth to the So-called 2011 Copyright Constitution.
“The One Man Show Leader has also ordered the State Councils where there seemed to be grey signs to have an Unopposed Return of exco to hatch his malicious plan. In fact, he just directed for the extension of the FCT Chapters Caretakers tenure by 3 months in disregard to the Court Order to maintain Status quo in the Case of FCT Council,” they said.
Kabir reacts
In his reaction, the national president, Comrade Kabir told our correspondent that all the issues raised by the aggrieved members were false.
He said all decisions were carried out by the CWC as outlined by the union’s constitution.
He said: “The issue of constitutional review was approved in Awka, Anambra state in 2011 when I was not even the president. At that time, I was only a member of CWC, so I can tell you nobody smuggled or doctored any letter to the new constitution. We have every document that was duly signed by the NEC members in session.
“On the issue of purchase of vehicle, it is not within anybody’s purview, but the entire structure. The purchase of an official vehicle was approved by CWC, I didn’t buy it on my own, it’s an official vehicle and not my personal vehicle as some of them are claiming..
“Also on the issue of NEC meeting, it is the power vested on the President to call for a meeting of CWC or NEC. Our constitution provides that we can only hold NEC meetings once in a year, of course we had our meeting last year; this year’s own is coming up soon. Nobody can hold anyone responsible for not calling a meeting. We have our guidelines.
“The fact there is that there were lots of irregularities in the FCT election. There was a protest letter sent to the national secretariat, so we had to act on that. We suspended the election and put a committee to investigate.
“The committee investigated the whole issue and reported. Unfortunately for them, even the recommendation of the committee was in their favour but they went to court.
“When there are crises in any case, there must be a caretaker committee, there must be leadership in place because we can’t leave a vacuum”
