By Godwin Oritse 

The Association of Maritime Truck Owners (AMATO) and the Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN) have firmly reiterated that the Council of Maritime Truck Unions and Associations (COMTUA) is no longer recognised and has no standing in Nigeria’s maritime sector.

Speaking on the development, Chief Remi Ogungbemi, Chairman of AMATO, and Kennedy Ikemefuna, Head of Media at MWUN, restated the position first made public in August 2023 that COMTUA has been disbanded by its founding unions and associations.

Ogungbemi said anyone parading himself as COMTUA is doing so at his own peril. 

“It has been disbanded,” Ogungbemi said. 

Echoing this stance, Ikemefuna of MWUN added, “Whoever he is talking to, that is their business because they are no longer with Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria.” He emphasized that MWUN, along with the other founding bodies, no longer recognizes COMTUA in any form.

This reaffirmation comes in response to recent claims by unidentified individuals purporting to represent COMTUA and attempting to engage in negotiations or represent truckers’ interests in the maritime sector. According to both AMATO and MWUN, such individuals are acting without authority and in direct defiance of the formal dissolution.

In August 2023, seven major unions and associations — MWUN, AMATO, the Nigerian Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO), Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria (RTEAN), National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), Container Truck Owners Association of Nigeria (COTOAN), and Amalgamation of Container Truck Owners Association of Nigeria (ACTOAN) — formally disbanded COMTUA and issued a stern warning to all stakeholders and security agencies not to engage with anyone acting under its banner.

At the official dissolution ceremony held at the NARTO Secretariat in Lagos, COMTUA’s founding president, Thomson Olaleye, declared that the council had “outlived its usefulness” and ceased to exist as of July 31, 2023.

“Consequently, the freedom to associate, under which COMTUA was formed, has ceased upon the termination of the MoU and the body hitherto called COMTUA has died,” Olaleye said at the time.

Security agencies and government bodies were formally notified and instructed to treat any ongoing operations or representations by COMTUA-affiliated individuals as illegal. 

“Whoever parades himself as executive of the body should be treated as an impostor and subsequently arrested,” the group warned.

Reacting to the development, Comrade Yinka Aroyewun questioned MWUN  and AMATO’s the right to tell who has been disbanded or not.

Aroyewun also said AMATO and MWUN are groups who work for the private sector for their wages adding that MWUN is in no way involved with the haulage business and as such has no right to say a trucking association has been disbanded.

He said:” If AMATO and MWUN are saying that COMTUA is not recognized, are they CAC, are they TUC, who is seeking recognition from them. Who gave the authority or mandate to recognize.

“Recognition of no recognition is secondary, now the question is that don’t we have right  to agitate even as an individual. Our association has gone beyond these petty arguments from people of inconsequential status within the system.

“Are you talking of AMATO whose president has been President in the last 30 years, is that an association, are you talking of MWUN whose membership has nothing to do with haulage business or truck ownership. They are purely in the Organized Private Sector working for people and earning wages.

“Whatever they say is a mere opinion COMTUA is standing for itself and its members.”