By Bashir Adefaka

The over 4,000-member Oyo State chapter of Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria, RTEAN, has accused the Oyo State government under Senator Abiola Ajimobi, of aiding the rival National Union of Road Transport Workers, NURTW, to snub rulings of both the National Industrial Court and Ibadan High Court in resolving the lingering issues between them.

State chairman of RTEAN, Prince Kehinde Adeyemo, accompanied by some of the union’s executive members including the state secretary, Alhaji Adewale Kadri, state secretary of finance, Comrade Oyedele Odetunde and state vice chairman l, Ibadan zone, Prince Nofiu Asanke, said they were being starved to death, so they have to either choose to remain silent and be starved to death or fight back to remain alive. According to him; “Definitely, we have no option than to fight back. That is what we will do because we have been patient for close to six years now without government doing anything about it”

The problem in Oyo State transport sector is said to be that of operating the motor parks, which the RTEAN complained was forcefully hijacked by the NURTW.

It said since the government, that is supposed to be the moderator had failed to call NURTW to order that its association would have no option to fight for itself.

Threat undesirable – Ajimobi
In a swift response however, Governor Ajimobi told Vanguard that his government is not aware of RTEAN’s complaint.

Senior Special Assistant to the governor on Print and Broadcast media, Mr. Akin Oyedele, who spoke on behalf of the governor, said; “If their (RTEAN’s) claim to patience in the face of alleged marginalisation by the sister union is true, that is noteworthy.

‘’However, their open threat to resort to self help is not in tandem with the peace and tranquillity this administration had laboured hard to enthrone. We will advise them to continue to operate within the ambit of the law and forward their grievances to the appropriate government and security agencies for amicable resolution.” Apparently unconvinced, Prince Adeyemo wondered that despite all advances by his association to the government to call the NURTW to order and enable its members go about their lawful activities the governor seems to be playing a hide and seek game with them.

‘’ Even when the National Industrial Court and High Court, both sitting in Ibadan, ruled in our favour, the governor seems to be playing a kind of neutrality that is now growing the problem into a serious security issue,’’ he said.

Stating why Road Transport Association of Nigeria, RTEAN, should be respected, Adeyemo said an association which had Chief Obafemi Awolowo as its secretary at a time and late Ooni of Ife Oba Adesoji Aderemi as member should not be slighted.

According to him, recent history also showed that General Olusegun Obasanjo military regime in 1976 re-registered the union and their reluctance to take up arms like the NURTW should not be seen as a weakness.

Prince Adeyemo explained that their problem is mainly in Ibadan and wondered why the
RTEAN/NURTW concurrent activities that is working across Nigeria including parts of Oyo State would not be allowed to work in Ibadan, where he said the three parks belonging to it had continued to be occupied forcefully by NURTW.

Curbing excesses of NURTW

His words: “We have three parks in Ibadan: Samonda, Odogbo opposite Army Barrack in Ojo and Shasha opposite Conoil. ‘’In Oyo State, the governor says all the three transport groups, RTEAN, NURTW and NARTO, operating, which is good. But to our shock, only the NURTW is working.’’

“This is so because the governor failed to issue order to the erring NURTW by standing his ground. Even government officials know the truth but are afraid of being attacked.

“We know it doesn’t take Governor Ajimobi a minute to curb the excesses of NURTW thereby achieve peace among us but he deliberately refused to do so or is he waiting until the situation results into insecurity whereby he will now require to deploy the security?

“There are two ultramodern parks in Ibadan, at Podo and Temidire and the governor promised to give one each to RTEAN and NURTW. But when the time to implement that promise came, we saw that he changed. And we gathered that it was NURTW that frustrated implementation of that arrangement with their parade of guns and cutlasses shooting sporadically all the time.

‘’Instead for the governor to enforce the full powers that he has as chief security officer of the state we just found later that it was the NURTW that overpowered the government and took over the two parks that were supposed to be shared.’’