All is not well at the Dalhatu Araf Specialist Hospital, DASH, Lafia, following the dissolution of leadership of the hospital’s branch of the National Association of Nigerian Nurses and Midwives by the state chairman of the association for allegedly mobilising members to embark on strike without recourse to down procedures.
State chairman of the association, Comrade Obadiah Avre, had in a letter dated November 25, 2013 and addressed to the chief medical director of the hospital, Ahmed Ashuku, directed the DASH unit of the association, led by Ibrahim Suleiman, to hand over the association’s property to a five-man caretaker committee. The Committee was said to have been constituted pending the election of a new leadership.
It was gathered that the Ibrahim Suleiman led executive committee, said to have been dissolved, had in response to the letter of the dissolution described the action of the state chairman as unconstitutional, illegal and irresponsible insisting that the leadership remain intact.
Nigerian Pilot learnt that the association had participated in a recent industrial action embarked upon by the unions of tertiary institutions which the hospital is said to be its member, to press home their demands, a decision the state leadership viewed as a breach of the association’s constitutional provisions.
A staff of the hospital who did not want his name in print argued that the ‘purported’ dissolution was in violation of article XXXlll of the association which stipulates that only the national executive council shall have the powers to take such decision when necessary.
Reacting to the development, chief medical director of the hospital, Ahmed Ashuku, who dismissed the allegations, said the management has since been communicated of the dissolution of the unit officials of the association and would no longer be recognised by the management.
On his part, the state chairman of the association, Obadiah Avre, argued that the hospital was not part of the state tertiary institutions, hence their participation in the industrial action called upon by unions of tertiary institutions was illegal, null and void, as such the leadership remain dissolved.