By Douglas ETIM
If the current status quo on the leadership of the League of Newspaper Publishers in Akwa Ibom State remains, a section of the publishers may split up the management committee of the League to run in parallel any moment from now.
This was the position of some aggrieved publishers who would not want to be named following the sham selection exercise that produced Mr Ernest Akpan as new chairman of the newspaper body.
Trouble started at about 11.35hours on Monday after some yet-to-be-identified thugs believed to have been sponsored by those opposed to the Ernest Akpan’s chairmanship stormed the Michael Suites in Ewet housing estate, Uyo, and succeeded in disrupting the inauguration ceremony. They were said to have fired live bullets into the air ostensibly to disperse the gathering.
Propellerng.com gathers from multiple competent sources that Ernest Akpan’s emergence as Chairman of the league of newspaper publishers was hatched by some forces in the government quarters, led by the special assistant to Governor Udom Emmanuel on local media, Uko Umoh, together with the chairman of Mkpat Enin local government area, Ephraim Akpan.
. Ephraim Akpan
Before the Monday incident, Ernest Akpan was to be installed as the third chairman of the League after Uko Umoh, who is now a governor’s aide. Mr Umoh had succeeded Ephraim Akpan in 2012 after the latter was elected chairman of of Mkpat Enin local government area. The trio of Ephraim Ernest and Umoh, it was learnt, established the Community Pulse newspaper, one of the numerous local tabloids in the state. Ephraim was said to have left Community Pulse in 2007 to establish The Quest newspaper, while Ernest was the publisher of Community Shield newspaper. The Community Shield would later cease to publish after its proprietor became a chief press secretary to a former Speaker of the Akwa Ibom state house of assembly, Anietie Etuk. Ernest stayed ahead to serve the succeeding Speaker, Sam Ikon, in the same office before he was sacked in early 2014. He had also served as Chairman of Federated Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Akwa Ibom state council, before he became a press secretary.
Ephraim Akpan, propellerng.com learnt, had registered the League of Newspaper Publishers as a non-governmental organization at inception in 2007 with Uko Umoh and Ernest Akpan as trustees, but later incorporated other newspapers following a proliferation of local tabloids in the state after the administration of former Governor Godswill Akpabio keyed into the programmes of league. It was also learnt that for a newspaper to be so included in the forum, its publisher would have to pay a fee of N100,000 only to the management committee. The body, under Ephraim Akpan, would become a powerful arm of the NUJ as it was said to have partnered with the government so as to review newspaper contents when necessary.
. Ernest Akpan
Some of the aggrieved publishers now see the League as the ‘sole property’ of Ephraim Akpan, its founder, and his associates like Uko Umoh and Ernest Akpan, hence the need for a peaceful pull out. Membership strength of the League is said to be over 120.
In spite of the disrupted inauguration on Monday, our correspondent observed that Mr Ernest Akpan continued to receive congratulatory messages from friends and colleagues, particularly on the social media.
And Late on Monday evening, an acceptance speech purportedly read by Ernest Akpan in a secret venue hit the social media.
Parts of the address, as extracted by this reporter from the Facebook page of Onlinenews Networkread, “I stand before you today, humbled and greatly honoured to have been found worthy by the Board of Trustees, to lead this esteemed business club of Newspaper Publishers as the Chairman, Management Committee of the League.
“Let me acknowledge here that I am not ignorant of the enormous challenges facing the league, bit to have been called upon in this trying time to steer its ship, to my mind, is a trust I cannot afford to betray. Having been a guy around, I know with the composition of my executive; men and women of proven track record, we will justify this huge confidence.
“Let me at this point salute the vision, courage, ingenuity and sagacity of these gentlemen; Ephraim Akpan, Kubiat Etang, Uko Umoh, Inimfon Silas and Ita Benedict; the one we call and addressed as “The Jigsaw”. These are the ones who created this today, yesterday.
“For us in the Management Committee, it is a call to service and together we shall strive to rebuild the broken walls of the media business which have been threatened by those we can collectively agree to be black legs.
“Let me reiterate that the media business from inception existed to fulfill the cardinal objectives of informing, educating and entertaining, if necessary. And I dare add that we will also strive to re-engineer and enforce professionals’ discipline amongst our members so as to regain our constitutional mandate as the fourth estate of the realm.
“The league of Newspaper Publishers according to its founding creed was intended to throw up a business platform for the development of its members. It was also to seek partnerships amongst governments and private agencies for the common good of all”.
As of the time of filing this report, we could not ascertain those backing Ernest Akpan are bent on ensuring that he remains the chairman of the league of publishers. A source within the NUJ said the insistence on Ernest Akpan is “to ensure that the state’s newspaper structure remains in the hands of a trusted government ally ahead of the rerun election ordered by the government election petition tribunal for the 18 (out of 31) local government areas where the April 11, 2015 governorship election results were annulled”.
Ernest Akpan contested for the Ibesikpo Asutan state constituency seat under the platform of the PDP but lost the primary election to Aniekan Uko, who is now Speaker of the state house of assembly. He is also a member of forum of Akwa Ibom State house of assembly PDP aspirants 2015. His associates in government were said to have promised to fix him in any relevant office after he lost the house of assembly primary
propeller
0 comments:
Post a Comment