By Godwin Oritse

IN his first official speech after taking over from Comrade Tony Nted Emmanuel, the newly-elected president general of the Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria, MWUN, Comrade Adewale Adeyanju, has declared that the union, under his watch would not tolerate the existence of cluster groups, fora and other ethnic associations.

He noted that the groups were the causes of several crises within the body, especially the pre-election face-off which according to him, was tactfully controlled before it could snowball into a full crisis.

Adeyanju warned that to avoid future crisis, all members of the union must remain obedient to the constitution guiding the MWUN and must operate by it alone. “I want to say that all associations and fora inside the port have been banned as from today. Our constitution in the union is the highest organ that we know. I don’t know anything about Alliance Maritime Forum, Oyo Forum, Ekiti Forum, Bakare Forum and so on. They are not enshrined in our constitution, so all these fora have been banned so that we would be able to concentrate and move the union forward”, he declared.

Adeyanju noted that the era of allowing thugs at Nigerian ports was successfully stamped out of the port by the union in the past eight years and that all the dock workers are now gainfully employed by terminal operators.

He expressed appreciation to the immediate past president general of the union, Comrade Tony Nted, assuring that the union would never derail from the standards he has laid.