By VICTOR AHIUMA-YOUNG
LAGOS—AGGRIEVED dockworkers protesting 16 months unpaid wages, Monday, downed tools and vowed not to return to work nationwide until they were paid.

President-General of Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria, MWUN, Mr. Nted Anthony Emmanuel, said this at the dockworkers branch of MWUN seminar on safety and security in the port, adding that the management of Nigeria Ports Authority, NPA, should be held responsible for the industrial action.

Addressing officials of the union, he said, “As I speak, we just received report that the ports in Onne and Port Harcourt have been shut down by dockworkers over the non- payment of the wage (minimum standard payment) for tally clerk and security. The same thing is happening in Warri, they are all protesting non-payment of their wages. I will be surprise, if before the end of today, it will spread to Lagos.”

The agreement expired in June and a new agreement was reached. This is the 16thmonth and it has not been implemented. How long will it take NPA to pay workers their allowances? Sooner or later it will get to Lagos port and NPA will begin to call us to intervene. Surely, we are not going to do that until the NPA pay.

We have told them that anything that affects labour in the port should be implemented speedily in order to avert unnecessary industrial action. This is because without these workers, government cannot generate the huge revenue they get from the ports.”

“Well it is true that all the ports have been shut down by the dockworkers as a result of non-payment of wages. Dockworkers and tally clerks have not been paid their wages in the last 16 months. We the leaders of the Maritime workers have made several efforts to make sure that government lives up to its responsibilities by paying them but to no avail.

To worsen the matte, most of the time you discover that these officials are very elusive, you can hardly reach them. When you go to their offices, you would be told that they went to Abuja but they don’t know that if these people they are wing did not generate the revenue, they would not be making their frequent trips to Abuja.

However, if you by chance see them they would beg us to go and talk to the workers to cool down that they are working out sometime. I have done that over and over again. But I don’t think I can continue because a hungry man is angry man .I don’t want them to kill me out of anger thinking that I am protecting government. The Bible says that labourers deserve their wages and I am calling on government to pay them with immediate effect.

Comrade Emmanuel said that importers and other Nigerians should know whom to blame when their goods enter demurrage.

Confirming the shut down, the president of the Dockworkers, Comrade Adewale Adeyanju claimed government and NPA had been taken them for a ride.

According to him, dockworkers had been pushed to the wall and as a “result, they don’t have any other alternative than to fight back.”

He said that government has been toying with the lives of the geese that are laying the golden eggs, adding that most stop.

Adeyanju lamented that while political office holders are living like emperors, those that are generating the revenue are been starved to death.

He said they have resolved not to open the ports until their salaries are paid in full.

On the way forward, he said

“Nigeria Ports Authority knows what to do only that they are just pretending. If they call us to a meeting, we will attend but we will not allow them to deceive us anymore. By the time the ports are shut for three or more days, they would know how much they have lost in terms of revenue. This is what they would have avoided by living up to their responsibilities.”