Members from four zones of the Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD) branch of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) has faulted recent publications of the parent body in two national dallies.
The members representing aggrieved leaders who won their court case in Abuja, in suit number NICN/ABJ/312/2023, said the publications made by NUPENG on Tuesday, June 11, 2024, were far from the truth..
The union's reaction was articulated on behalf of the concerned PTD members by Comrade Lawrence Mowetei and Comrade Princewill Damiari from the Port Harcourt Zone.
In a jointly signed statement yesterday, they said the publications should be taken with a pinch of salt. They added that selfish, desperate, and misguided elements within NUPENG's leadership should stop misleading the public and stop fantasising about taking over PTD by force.
They maintained that the plot to instigate a crisis in the forthcoming PTD delegates' conference and truncate the people's will had not only been exposed but also failed.
According to them, "the NICN/ABJ/312/2023 judgment nullified all the elections conducted in Abuja and Ibadan. Also, the National Executives of PTD, which means all the acts of the executives from November 1, 2023, to May 29, 2024, were all null. "Ex nihilo nihil fit" means " nothing comes from nothing."
"In line with the judgement, NUPENG has flagrantly refused to recall all the PTD members they illegally suspended from their respective positions. NUPENG has also not reconciled all warring parties and opposition in PTD.
"The suspended members were not allowed to return to PTD and their respective positions before the illegal suspension. Their personal businesses have been under siege: filling stations have been grounded, and their trucks have not been allowed to load at all depots across the country.
"The suspended members are not accredited members of the delegates for the proposed national delegates conference and are still referred to as ex -PTD leaders by another publication in a national daily of June 26, 2024 by NUPENG general secretary Afolabi Olawale. The list of delegates published has names of comrades who are dead and buried or in the mortuary and those who are no longer in office because they have completed their terms in office.
"In the history of the PTD elections and every election in the world, there is always a campaign. PTD should be allowed to campaign for candidates of their choice, not a Kangaroo candidate already packaged by some "godfathers" in NUPENG. No form of screening was made in the four zones nationwide by the electoral committee, suggesting that they already have anointed candidates (their stooges and surrogates) in mind, as displayed in the Facebook pages of Port Harcourt and Warri Zonal Councils.
"NUPENG has shown deep-rooted interest and bias in the PTD election, and as such, we call on the court to appoint a neutral body to be members of the electoral committee and conduct the election. People such as past National Chairmen of PTD, former NUPENG Presidents and their deputies the registrar of the National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN) Abuja, under the strict supervision of the DSS and Ministry of Labour.
"The voting system shall be a secret ballot system. The open ballot system is for intimidation and victimisation. The Warri, Lagos and Port Harcourt Zonal chairmen have already threatened that any delegate who refuses to stand behind them will have himself to blame.
"The voting shall be with a PTD membership card and not the biometric card that has been heavily compromised by NUPENG and the acclaimed godfathers. Many PTD members were disenfranchised during the biometric revalidation exercise carried out in the heat of the crisis rocking the Union.
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"The venue of the delegate conference shall be Abuja, which has always been our traditional venue until the godfathers came in and moved it to the location they can manipulate and control. We want our National Delegates Conference at Abuja or a neutral place chosen by both factions," Mowetei said.
Comrades Mowetei and Damiari therefore asked "NUPENG to immediately withdraw the criminal charges against all PTD members in FCT High Court 14, Maitama (Suit No. CR/042/23), some of them have already been "Cleared to contest" in the July 3, 2024 delegates conference in Lagos.
"Lagos Zone, which is a stronghold of the godfathers in NUPENG who are bent on imposing their stooges and surrogates, cannot and should not be the venue for three consecutive elections in three years: 2022 Ibadan, 2023 Ibadan, and 2024 Lagos; both factions should agree on a neutral venue and date outside the Lagos Zone," they added.
