Let $G$ be a group of odd order.  It is known that if every central automophism of $G$ acts trivially on the center, then $G$ is purely non-abelain, this amounts to saying that every central endomorphism $u$ of $G$ (an endomorphism such that $x^{-1}u(x) \in Z(G)$, for all $x \in G$) is an automorphism.

I could generalize this (using some ring theory) to the case of the automorphisms acting trivially on a quotient of an abelain normal subgroup: Let $A$ be an abelian normal subgroup of $G$.  If every automorphism of $G$ acting trivially on $G/A$ leaves $A$ elementwise fixed, then every endomorphism of $G$ acting trivially on $G/A$ is an automorphism.

I wonder if one can see a  straightforward purely group theoretic proof of this result.



Thanks in advance.