One of the chairmanship candidates in the aborted election of the Nigerian Medical Association in Enugu State, Dr Tony Onyia, popularly called J.O.T. Onyia, tells RAPHAEL EDE about the crisis that marred the electionThe problem is that the Association of Resident Doctors of Enugu State University of Technology, Parklane, made a financial commitment to the tune of almost N7m to the Nigerian Medical Association.
After a while, he picked the ballot papers from the floor which I tried to resist, but the police assured me that there was nothing that they could do with those papers, and that the election had been disrupted. Little did we know that the chairman had plans to continue with the collation of the results with the few ballot papers they had taken from the floor.
And immediately the chairman saw us, he left through the window and ran away. He wanted to leave with the ballot box but we were able to stop that.Well, he claimed that some doctors in ESUT-Parklane owed association dues but not everybody owed and having paid almost N7m, definitely not everybody owed, some people should have been allowed to vote. Rather, he said nobody from ESUT-Parklane would vote and that was not fair. That is unjust and illegal.
During the Annual General Meeting which he conducted recently, he was supposed to dissolve his executive and allow the congress to elect an electoral officer but he did not do that. Instead, he came to Michael Okpara Square and singlehandedly appointed electoral officers and they conducted the election.