The seeming serenity and spirit of brotherliness that pervaded the very strategic Eko Club all along is now being shattered.

The Club is being torn apart with the insistence of the Owolabi Lawal led executive's insistence on amending the constitution of the Club.

The amendment proposed by Owolabi Lawal and the exco was allegedly meant to 'reduce the cumbersome way of electing the President and Vice President of the Club.'

Under Article 21 of the Constitution of the Club, there shall be general election annually during the session of the Annual General Meeting of the Club with exception of the President and Vice President whose tenure is fixed for a maximum of two terms of two years each.

The constitution further stipulated that only members who have paid their annual dues on or before December 31, of the year of the election, are eligible to vote.

This is the aspect of the constitution the Owolabi Lawa led exco wanted to amend. According to them, the President and Vice President of the Club should now be elected by an Electoral College comprising 24 most senior members of the Club chosen from an initial list of 100 members.

Consequently, a constitution review panel was set up for the purpose of amending the constitution.

However, the decision to amend the constitution did not go down well with majority of the members of the club and 62 of them, who are financial members out of the 442 financial members, signed and forwarded a counter motion to the executive protesting against the proposed amendment.

On the day of the amendment, Owolabi Lawal rather than call on the sponsors of the proposed amendment, to speak on the issue and explain further to the members, called on members of the review panel to speak and then put the matter on voice vote.

Even the shouts of 'nay' far outnumbered and were louder than that of 'aye', yet, Owolabi Lawal pronounced that the 'ayes' had it and subsequently declared that the constitution had been amended.

It was after the amendment that the real drama started. The Eko Club President now announced to the gathering that he received a counter motion letter from 62 members of the Club.

“Since the constitution of this Club does not give room for counter motion, the 62 members are hereby suspended,” he declared and this led to a strong protest from some members. Elderly members, like ex-Inspector General of Police, Alhaji Musiliu Smith; Senator Munir Muse and Chief Tunde Fanimokun, raised their hands to speak on the issue, but they were flatly ignored by the President, who defiantly called for a closing prayer.

Many were of the belief that the President was autocratic in single-handedly suspending the 62 members. “The issue is why did he (Lawal) raise the issue of the counter motion before going on to pronounce the amendment? Why did he not recognise the elders who wanted to speak on the matter? “This president has a hidden agenda,” a member told us.

Another headache for the Owolabi Lawal led exco to deal with is how they would explain the constitutionality and legality of the controversial amendment.

We learnt that the constitution of the Club provided that for such important decisions such as the amendment of the constitution to be ratified, the decision must be approved by 50 per cent of the total number of financial members of the club.

The Club has 442 financial members of which 50 per cent will be 221 members. At the meeting where the controversial amendment was approved, only 140 members were present as at the time while 19 others joined later making a total of 159, far lower than the required number of 221 members.

At present, the crisis continues as five out of the suspended 62 members have been expelled.

All efforts to get Owolabi Lawal to react to the issue proved abortive. He neither picked his calls nor responded to text messages sent to his phone. The General Secretary, Engr. Wale Ojikutu, insisted he would not speak on the phone on the matter.

We will continue to update our readers on the controversy and crisis in the Eko Club as events unfold.

Icon Weekly Magazine.

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