The bid to elect a new set of officers for the National Association of Women Journalists, NAWOJ, in Lagos turned violent on Thursday.
Trouble started when one of the supporters of one of the candidates from the Lagos State Ministry of Information, accompanied by thugs, state officials and operatives of the Department of State Services, DSS, prevented a bailiff from serving an order of the court.
The bailiff was at the venue of the election to serve the order by Justice R.H. Gwandu of the National Industrial Court to restrain the Nigerian Union of Journalists and four others from conducting the scheduled election of officers of NAWOJ.
He was however prevented from serving the order to the chairman of the electoral committee, Abiola Beckley and other affected parties.
Apart from the bailiff, the thugs also descended on a Vice Chairmanship candidate from The Sun Newspapers, Tessy Igomu, and beat her up.
They also chased away those believed to be supporting the opponents of the contestant from the Ministry of Information.
The issuance of the order by Justice Gwandu was made after hearing the motion ex parte filed and argued by Omotayo Olatunbosun, counsel who represented Sekinah Lawal, a contestant to the office of the NAWOJ Chairman.
The court granted the application and ordered the stoppage of the poll.
In the suit designated: NICN/LA/248/2019, the court ordered an interim injunction restraining the respondents from recognising the first defendant, Ekene Adeola, as a candidate for the chairperson in the scheduled NAWOJ election as well as restraining the body responsible for the conduct of the election from going ahead with it.
Joined as defendants in the suit are Ekine Adeola, the Registered Trustees of the Nigerian Union of Journalists; the National President of NAWOJ, Ifeyinwa Omowole; Ladi Bala; Abiola Beckley and Yemisi Adeniran.
The Court ordered that the defendants be put on notice.
It also ordered for accelerated hearing of the case and urged parties to obey the order of Court, holding that any attempt of omission or commission would be treated as contempt of the court.
It subsequently adjourned the matter till May 30, 2019 for accelerated hearing.
The bailiff spent about five hours at the venue of the election but was prevented from serving the order.
