Court Halts Food Union’s Emergency Delegates Conference

• Union’s Secretariat Shut Till Further Notice

Exactly a week to the Emergency Delegates’ Conference of the National Union of Food Beverage and Tobacco employees (NUFBTE), the Lagos Division of the National Industrial Court has through and interim injunction stopped the union from conducting the conference.

Comrade Abiodun Philip and other aggrieved members of the union had recently approached the court praying among other things for the stoppage of the union’s emergency Delegates’ conference pending the determination of some substantive issues bordering on the tenure of the current president of the union, Comrade Lateef Idowu Oyelekan and 10 others elected officials whom they accused of attempting to elongate their tenure in violation of the union’s constitution.

The aggrieved members noted that Comrade Oyelekan and his colleagues in the leadership of the union had duly exhausted their legitimate two terms and are therefore no longer eligible to contest for another term.

Granting the prayers for an interim injunction to the applicants, His Lordship, Honourable Justice (Dr.) I. J. Essien, asserted that he is satisfied that the prayers of the applicants are proper and ought to be granted.

He stated: “I have listened to the learned Counsel for the applicant move the court to grant the interim orders. I have also read the affidavit in support of the application in particular paragraph 10 of the main affidavit and also paragraph 10 of the affidavit of urgency.

“I am satisfied that the notice of the meeting dated 6/7/2020 calling for the emergency National Delegates Conference does not comply with Rule 7 (i) of the 18^th Defendant Constitution. The Notice was not served at least 3 months preceding the date of the conference.

“Furthermore, Rule 7 (iii) which requires that an agenda for the meeting must be served on the delegates 2 weeks before the conference has not been complied with rather the agenda is dated 6/8/2020 as shown to the Court by the learned applicant counsel and was received vide watsapp [sic] text message on the 12/8/2020 for a meeting which is holding on the 21/8/2020. This is also a violation of Rule 7 (iii) of the 18^th defendant constitution tendered as exhibit A.

“I am satisfied that this [is] a proper application in which this court ought to grant the interim orders. Accordingly, the motion expert is granted as prayed in the following terms:

“1. An order of interim injunction is hereby granted restraining the 1^st to 18^th Defendants/Respondents and all other officers of the 18^th Defendants form [sic] conducting of holding the planned Emergency Delegates Conference now scheduled for 21^st August, 2020, the agenda being to ratify the illegal and unconstitutional decision by the 1^st to 17^th Defendants to postpone the period for conduct of election of elections [sic] into all elective offices of the particularly the elective offices presently occupied by the 1^st to 11^th defendants for two years and to illegally extend the tenure of office of the current elected officers of the 18^th Defendant particularly that of the 1^st to 11^th Defendants contrary to the provisions of the Constitution of the 18^th Defendant, pending the hearing and determination of motion on notice.

“2. An order of interim injunction is hereby granted restraining the 1^st to 18^th Defendants from ratifying or giving effect to the purported resolution passed at the National Executive Council meeting of the 18^th Defendant on the 4^th day February, 2019, as contained in the document dated 20^th February, 2019 with REF NO: NUF/NHS/GS/VOL.1/08. Titled ‘OUTCOME OF 2019 NATIONAL EXECUTIVE CONCIL [sic] (NEC) MEETING OF NUFBTE IN ABUJA’ extending and/or postponing the period for conduct of Elections into various elective positions/all structures of the 18^th Defendant and extending and/or elongating the tenure of office of elected officers of the Union by a period of two years beyond the tenure/period constitutionally provided and contrary to Rules 6(iii), 7(i) & (vi), 10(ii) & (v), 11(xi), 12(i), 13(ii), 14(f) & (g) of the Constitution of the Union…”

Justice Essien adjourned sitting till August 19 2020 for hearing of the motion on notice.

Flashback

The union has been enmeshed in serious crisis which became public since February this year when the aggrieved members wrote a petition exposing plots by Comrade Oyelekan to secure a fourth consecutive term for himself as president of the union. The aggrieved members had revealed that he planned to achieve this ambition through an emergency delegates conference months after he ought to have left office through a constitutional quadrennial delegates conference which should have held in January this year.

The union’s constitution, the aggrieved members posited, has provision for only two terms for elective offices.

The members later proceeded to the National Industrial Court with a number of prayers bordering on serious breaches of the union’s constitution with respect to tenure of office and asking it to stop a number of members of the current leadership of the union, including Comrade Oyelekan from seeking third or fourth tenure in office.

National Secretariat shut

Meanwhile, the national secretariat of the union has been shut indefinitely following the ruling halting the emergency conference.

Although the closure of the secretariat was attributed to the coronavirus pandemic, a source confided in National Record that it was a strategy to avoid being served the injunction.

In a memo dated 13^th August 2020, entitled: “COVID-19 STAY AT HOME DIRECTIVE”, and addressed to all members of staff of the union, which was sighted by National Record, the HOD Admin/Personnel, Comrade Sunday Ilesanmi, stated: “Please be informed that owing to the continuous daily upsurge in the report of the ravaging of [sic] Corona Virus (Covid-19) on Nigerians across the country, Lagos State in particular, you are therefore advice [sic] to stay at home with immediate effect (i.e.) 13^th August, 2020. [His emphasis]

“This has become imperative to play safe pending the period a total relax will be announced by the Federal Government.

“Please stay safe and always maintain social distance.”

The General Secretary, Comrade Bamidele Busari, from whom this sort of memo ideally ought to emanate, said he was not aware of the decision, when contacted by National Record, although the memo was purported to have been copied to him and the National President.

Comrade Busari said he only saw the document on the notice board upon his arrival at the secretariat on Friday morning. Asked if he was informed of the decision; Comrade Busari said: “Not at all, no information. I just got here this morning and they said I cannot enter. I saw the message on the [notice] board; it was the HOD admin that signed the paper. This is how our union is now being run now.”