*As Police arrest 14 over mayhem

By Ola Ajayi

IBADAN — APPARENTLY to be used for the actualization of their political interest come 2011, two factions in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, are now battling for the control of the National Union of Road Transport Workers,NURTW, in Oyo State.

While the faction loyal to Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala favours the dismissed acting chairman of the union, Alhaji Lateef Salako, the faction sympathetic to the former Governor, Senator Rashidi Ladoja is supporting the newly-reinstated former chairman, Alhaji Lateef Akinsola, a.k.a Tokyo, who was unseated in controversial circumstances.

This came after the State Police Command confirmed the arrest of about 14 members of the union for alleged breach of public peace.

After alleged connivance with the Oyo State Police Command to disallow Alhaji Akinsola to resume the chairmanship of the union as ordered by the National Industrial Court, NIC, Abuja, Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala, weekend, proscribed the union with immediate effect.

But, the second faction led by Alhaji Yunus Akintunde, a loyalist of Senator Ladoja described the proscription as suspicious and a confirmation that the removal of Tokyo as the “union boss in June last year was stage-managed to destabilize the NURTW and put it under the firm control of government for the forthcoming 2011 elections.”

He said government’s unhealthy infiltration of other labour unions in the State like the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, the Nigeria Union of Teachers, NUT, activities among others, was dragging the name of the party in the mud.