The lingering crisis in the Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD) section of the National Union of Employees of Petroleum and Natural Gas (NUPENG) has continued to assume a dangerous dimension, with the derivable benefits from this critical section of the country’s oil industry suffering untold setback. A concerned member of one of the warring groups, Comrade Babalola Bolaji, spoke with reporters, recently, on the way forward.
Genesis of the problem
The genesis of the crisis in Petroleum and Tanker Drivers (PTDS) section of NUPENG started from internal crisis.
One man called Olawale Afolabi had assumed the role of an overall boss and not as an employee. As an employee, he must take counsel from the employer and try to give them professional advice on how to put things straight.
However, what he does as a secretary now is commanding them. He acts as their boss, not as an employee anymore. The man has really caused the PTD a lot of havoc.
What they are looking for is how to control it. The funniest part of it is that this man is from NUPENG, not employee to PTD direct. One of us, Oladiti Salman Akanni, brought him into PTDS. They are all from the same town, so they now want to turn PTD into an ethnic something, no more union, but one-man business.
This has been the tussle in the PTD and they did not know how to quench it until it aggravated to external crisis. Now, Akanni has used PTDS, but he doesn’t want to leave it. He now connived with some people from NUPENG.
I want you to know that NUPENG has over 40 branches under it. The question is, why cause trouble in PTD? What is their interest with PTD? Their interest is simply selfishness and greed, because the audacity given to them from Akanni has made them to sit on their neck.
What they are doing is to impose their people without following the constitutional procedure, and it is not right.
Why making peace is difficult
From all indications, resolving the crisis bedeviling PTDS now will be a little difficult, because NUPENG people have entered them and they don’t want to go out until the court helps them to settle the matter. But they don’t know that nobody is above the law.
The status quo ante should be maintained and the court should be allowed to settle the matter. If personally they want to solve it, NUPENG needs to remove its hand and say okay, how do you people do your elections? How do you people work it out? The predecessors, how did they do it?
What they should do is for NUPENG to be an observer. If the matter was reported to NUPENG, they can come in as a mother body and say, ‘okay, we are your mother, we select some people from other branches, let us look unto their crisis.’
But these people are the cause of the crisis. It cannot be resolved amicably except they remove their hands. The way the situation is, it may not be amicably settled except by the judiciary. That is the only thing.
My advice is that they should maintain the status quo ante.
Effect of the crisis so far
The lingering crisis has affected PTD, because they are not having freedom anymore. You can imagine people coming in to remove people without any offence. There is no constitutional labour law that says you can remove any worker without any crisis, but they’ve interpreted it their own way. They don’t even have any respect for the law of Nigeria or court.
So, because of it, their case is just cumbersome. It is the judiciary that can help out. We don’t even enjoy our work since NUPENG took over PTD. NUPENG has about 40 branches, but they sat on PTD. There is a cabal causing this crisis and they are known. We are law-abiding tanker drivers and we observe all the rules, but they have continued to disobey court orders.
Court ordered that the status quo ante should be allowed to remain and nobody should be maintained, but they ignored it. They have stopped all our vehicles from working. Our fillings stations are not working for over seven months.
They are doing this because they feel they have money. We don’t have money, but we must stick to the rule of law.
Expectations from government
Well, according to the report I heard, they’ve written a letter to Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Department of State \service (DSS), Inspector General of Police (IGP) and Ministry of Labour to attend to them, but so far no reply.
They called both parties, but the other party that hijacked the leadership of PTDS did not reply till date for over four months now,
So, I don’t know the government body that can step in now to resolve the crisis.
Advice to the feuding parties
The advice I can give them is that if they don’t want this crisis to linger, NUPENG should remove its hand and let them oversee others. If that is the way they have been taking offices from others, how many offices will they take?
Role of the Police
When the crisis started, the Police arrested the principal executives of one of the warring parties and took them to a magistrate court for beating some people up. They were doing their findings to know who beat them, agreed.
However while they were on bail, the Police re-arrested them and invited them to come, that they want to look at the case and locked them up. The other party did not come. They charged them to court again, another court, and remanded them at Kuje Prison again and they want them to remain there until they are bailed.
It remains a great injustice that must be addressed. Police failed to investigate the case properly, they just framed them up. All I know is that we need prayers to get justice.
