The Enugu State Chapter of Nigeria Medical Association, NMA, on Saturday, succumbed to the intractable crisis as a group of the Medical Doctors’ Association emerged from an emergency virtual meeting, claiming it has suspended the State Chairman, Dr Ike Okwesili.
The revolutionary group said it appointed Dr Onyekachi Ugwuonye of the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital Enugu as its Acting Chairman and referred Okwesili to the ethic and disciplinary committee, on account of gross abuse of office for truncating a previous State Executive Council, SEC meeting.
They also alleged that Okwesili unjustly withdrew the rights and privileges of some members of the association, suspended others based on misinformation and was planning to tactically barricade Resident Doctors of Enugu State University Teaching Hospital, ARD ESUT-TH Parklane, from full participation in the state NMA activities.
“The Chairman, Dr Ike Okwesili, stands suspended and has been referred to the Ethics and Disciplinary Committee, on account of gross abuse of office by deliberately and abruptly truncating an ongoing SEC meeting where weighty issues of withdrawal of rights, privileges, and suspension of members were to be discussed, a development that can throw the association into chaos,” Ugwuonye stated in a communiqué he signed with Dr Izuchukwu Okam as the emergency presiding officer.
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The embattled State Chairman, Dr Okwesili, however, described his purported suspension as a ruse, alleging that Ugwuonye and co were endangered members of the association under investigation and working to truncate pending NMA state election slated for August 2020.
Okwesili said that the Ugwuonye-led exercise was a charade, an orchestrated and executed failed plot to topple a legitimate State Executive Council of NMA in Enugu state and urged members to disregard the “embarrassment.”
Okwesili said: “The problem is that the Resident Doctors of Parklane hospital will collect their NMA dues and refuse to remit to the association while the Consultants will remit theirs. I told them that we have a record of financial members but they said we should collect whatever they give us but I said no, that they have to be specific on the number of people they want to pay for, but they said that whatever they give us will represent the whole members, so you can see the rascality and some people were taken to EFCC.
“The major problem now is that there is a scheduled NMA Enugu state election and they are insisting that they must come and vote. Meanwhile, some centres are not boarded because they know they did not meet the constitutional requirement and I tell people this is not proper that they are behaving like rascals. That is the problem.
“So what they are trying to do now is that people are contesting the election and insisting that the non-financial members must be cleared. They went and cooked up a meeting that was not even properly constituted and started shouting suspension. Why don’t they come and take over the secretariat? These are just a few individuals and a lot of senior persons are embarrassed.
“These people, the disciplinary committee headed by our past two chairmen, the Cardiologist, Prof Ejim and Prof Agwu had found them wanting and they want to renege on it. They don’t want to obey clear laid down rules. It’s politically motivated, there are those who have an interest in the election and that’s why they are pushing the rubbish.”
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