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The unnecessary Media confusion over who the NANS President is

The media is saddled with the responsibility of giving the audience factual and accurate news all the time. But what happens when even the media is confused?

The media houses in Nigeria is confused on who is the real President of the National Association of Nigeria Students (NANS), which the apex body of the Nigerian students, is, with some reporting that the head of the body is Comrade Chinonso Obasi while other believes its Comrade Aruna Kadiri.

Chinonso Obasi claims to have been elected as the President on Tuesday, 19th of July 2016 at the 31st NANS convention that was held in Gombe State University. While Aruna Kadiri was elected on Thursday, 6th of October in the same year and he was noted as the 28th NANS president in University of Abuja.

Aruna Kadiri’s inauguration was attended by the representatives of the Wife of the President, Aisha Buhari, Speaker, House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, and the SSA to the President on Youth and Students affairs.

On February 24th, Daily Trust run a story on xenophobic attack and the headline read “NANS gives S/Africa 48 hours to leave Nigeria”. The story reports on how Aruna Kadiri led students to South African based companies in Nigeria, telling them to evacuate the country.

Punch reported a story on the 25th of April, on how the Student body is demanding for the release of students that were detained by the DSS for having a peaceful protest. The interesting and funny thing about this story is that while the feature picture of the story shows Kadiri standing in the midst of a crowd, the main story has Obasi as the President of the body who issued a statement in Abuja on how the leadership of the body is pained that members were humiliated by the security forces on the directive of the Kogi State Government. On July 10, Punch also ran a news item in which it said NANS was going to protest in Kaduna against the Quit Notice served to the Ndigbo in the North. Kadiri was identified as the leader when he briefed the newsmen earlier about the need for security in the North.

The Tribune reported how NANS vowed to resist the politicians that are delaying the recall of Senator Dino Melaye and also condemned the Ozubulu killing in Anambara and Kadiri was also the one who issued a statement on behalf of the body. However, it seems the Tribune is the most confused because they had reported a news in which NANS protested the continual stay in office of the Vice Chancellor of Micheal Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike. It reported that Comrade Obasi led the protest as the president of the apex body of the Nigerian students.

While Chinonso Obasi is being reported as the 31st NANS President, Aruna Kadiri is being reported as the 28th NANS student.

Vanguard also ran a story on July 23rd in which Chinonso Obasi was said to have called the President and the conversation he had with him shows he is recovering swiftly.

The media which is supposes to be out light with which we see as now turn to confusing Nigerians.

ETN24 had an interview with Haruna Kadiri where he explained how Chinonso Obasi was not even a candidate in the election. Watch on our Youtube Channel.

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