TheCable

Ahmed Maiwada, lawyer and poet, has declared his intention to run for presidency of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA).

In his declaration speech made available to TheCable on Saturday, the former legal adviser of the association, lamented about the state of things with ANA, promising to ensure lost land, members and image are restored.

Maiwada, who was part of a committee set to watch over the land given ANA in 1986, said he had been in courts for many years, fighting to recover parts of the association’s land that have been taken.

“The particular land and its original certificate of occupancy were in the physical possession of a developer who appropriated for himself everything and, when asked to surrender possession, filed a case in court that lasted four years,” he said.

“Imagine yourself as that who eventually won the court case for your association, thinking that, now the entire members of your association would benefit from that land. Imagine the rude shock at realising that the size of the land on paper, which you have recovered, was reduced by about half while you had been in court fighting.

“I want you to put yourself in the shoes of that lawyer: see yourself, soon after finishing the four-year long and energy-sapping litigation for your dear association, seeing other people apart from the developer you have defeated in court, rising up to lay claim that even that half-land that you have recovered had been sold to them and therefore your association had nothing there to lay claim on. Imagine you are that lawyer, left with no choice than return to court and continue fighting, most times all alone, for the next six years, in order to finally secure title for your association and thereby guarantee the full security of the land you have recovered during the initial four years of your battle in court.

“Imagine yourself in the shoes of that lawyer – your only reason for putting up those years of battle and stiff resistance against those seeking to take away the land belonging to your dear association being that all the other members of the association might eat from the fat of that land you have recovered, without discrimination against anybody on the basis of ethnicity, religion or membership status in the association.”

Calling on members of ANA, Maiwada said he has watched the litany of losses over the past years in utter helplessness, and lacking the power to stem the tide.

He said he knows that what has been done has been done and some of those things may never be redeemed.

“However, I am positive that many of those deficit situations could be reversed, given the right people in position to exercise authority on behalf of our dear association,” he said.

“As for the future, I am very positive that, with a change at the helm of our affairs of personnel from the current ones whose style is either careless or lacking in clues as to what is amiss and what is to be done to put it right, ANA’s lost land, lost membership and lost image would definitely be restored.”

The election is expected to take place in October during ANA’s conference in Enugu.