Mohammed Shosanya

The National Chairman of the Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD) Branch of NUPENG Comrade Lucky Osezua has asked the President and General Secretary of NUPENG Williams Akporeha and Afolabi Olawale to resign from office to allow fresh air and stability in the union.

The action was conveyed in a statement signed by one Preye Odede-Graham on behalf of the PTD leadership of Comrade Osesua

He blamed the recent woes befalling NUPENG on the alleged lacklustre attitude of the President as well as intimidation, victimization and harassment of the members of PTD by the General Secretary which is at variance to the extant rules of the union and human dignity.

He maintained that they no longer want to be used as attack dogs against the Federal Government and other players in the industrial ecosystem.

The aggrieved PTD members also accused Afolabi and Williams of carrying out activities that are contemptuous to the court which would further plunge them into shame and legal punishment. PTD described sneaking into the premises of PTD Secretariat by Afolabi and Williams and their ilk as a show of ignominy.

They also accused them of failure to carry elders and veterans of NUPENG along, adding that if the duo were allowed to continue in office their joint presence could drag the union into total extinction.

They implored stakeholders in trade union, media, civil society, legal profession, etc to support them to commence the re-engineering of NUPENG by showing Afolabi and Williams exit doors from the union.

PTD also expressed disappointment over the abandonment of the founding father of NUPENG, Chief Frank Ovie Kokori who is languishing in the hospital bed, noting that the current leadership of NUPENG are insensitive to the plights of the rank and file members, staff, elders and veterans of the union.

Below is the statement in full:

“The Show Of Shame By Williams And Afolabi

“How are the mighty fallen! The story of Williams Akporeha and Afolabi Olawale is currntly a show of shame and disappointment. Meanwhile, after watching the world press conference of our prudent National Chairman, Comrade Lucky Osesua, who credibly emerged as the National Chairman of the people by the people and for the people, one will simply conclude that the era of fresh air has arrived and will permanently stay in the PTD Branch of NUPENG.

“This new breather for the tanker drivers in the union is also signaling a total end to all forms of manipulation, extortion, intimidation and harassment by the Williams Akporeha and Afolabi Olawale led administration in the union.

“Our National Chairman’s broadcast is not ordinary, but firmly rekindles the hope for the hopeless. Petroleum Tanker Drivers are not mere servants for some egocentric leaders of NUPENG who only use us as attack dogs against the Federal Government and non complying businessmen. We have observed that the interest of drivers is being compromised and worst still, relegated to the background and most annoying is that these hardworking members of PTD are being tagged common drivers. We are grateful to God that this has been put to a total halt under the leadership of Comrade Lucky Osesua.

“Let me take on Afolabi and what he represents, he is one person whose interest is to enrich himself and display a high level of heinous activity to subjugate other union members and staff. A salary earner of NUPENG, whose primary scope of work is to mind the secretariat has now turned himself into a monster. Under him, all NUPENG positions have prize tags, all for his selfish purpose. The liberation mantra has started, and I thank God and men that kick-started this struggle. May the almighty God bless you all.

“Another shameful act which we discovered was that some vicious leaders in NUPENG as currently constituted used operatives of Police and DSS to hoodwink and harass our people to support them against their wish. Let me also announce that we will challenge all these shenanigans in Court and expose everyone involved in this arbitrary use of state powers. My sincere advice to Williams and Afolabi is to resign their positions forthwith to enable us to redirect our union, they’ve lost every essence of trade union leadership. They should also turn-in themselves to proper Police investigation and hand over the union’s properties in their possessions.

“Afflilate members of NUPENG should pass a vote of no confidence on the duo. They have failed us. The time is now for NUPENG to start charting a new course to enable us to face and mitigate the challenges of deregulation in the petroleum sector.

“The PTD election shows clearly that the duo can not be able to handle the affairs of NUPENG. The union is too big for them. They should honorably resign immediately, especially now that their reputation is dwindling woefully.

“Meanwhile, to our surprise the duo and their ilk dishonorably sneaked into the premises of the PTD secretariat like a thief in the night to display shame and proof that they are unrepentant in abuse of office and flagrant disregard for the rule of law. Elders of the union have been relegated to the background for trying to ask relevant questions on the well-being of the members, but Afolabi has consistently warned these elders to keep their advice.

“Our past leaders and elders who have suffered for the union are dying in the hospitals and seeking help, but the current leadership of NUPENG turned deaf ears to their calls. We therefore appeal to all our members not to be despaired, let us join hands together and win the battle against these common enemies and stop them once and for all, these multidimensional nonsense and slavery must be hurriedly to stop. United we stand.”

Mohammed Shosanya

President of the National Industrial Court, Justice Benedict Kanyip, Friday,stopped the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Trade Union Congress (TUC) as well as other affiliate unions from going on any form of nation wide strike from November 14.

The two leading labour unions were stopped from going on with the planned strike through an exparte order secured by the Federal Government on Friday on Friday evening.

The motion was filed by and moved by the Federal Government and the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice.

The Federal Government and the AGF through their lawyer, Tijani Gazali SAN, had in the ex-parte motion asked the court to restrain the labour unions from embarking on the planned industrial action in order not to unleash untold hardships on innocent law abiding citizens and their businesses.

Gazali drew the attention of Justice Kanyip to series of hardships suffered by Nigerians on Thursday alone when the labour unions blocked entrances to the main Airports in the country.

He told the court that if the planned strike action is not stopped, there may be likelihood of breach of peace and tranquility in the country.

Justice Kanyip invoked sections 17 and 19 of the National Industrial Court Act to issue the restraining order against the labour unions.

The Judge, persuaded by the government arguments in a short ruling said that it was within the power of the court to intervene by way of restraining order to ensure peace and tranquility.

He proceeded to grant all the reliefs of the Federal Government as set out on the motion paper.

Besides, Justice Kanyip held that the restraining order be pasted on the wall of the Labour House being the last known address of the two defendants to draw their attention to the Court’s order.

Besides,the Judge stated that the order along with the originating and other processes be served on the defendants by publication in two major national dailies.

Mohammed Shosanya

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Foundation,in partnership with Kudimata Nigeria Limited, a financial education outfit, have trained the Batch C members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) in basic financial literacy skills.

The training, which aligned with the objectives of Skills Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development (SAED) scheme of NYSC had its maiden edition featuring Batch B stream in the past months. So far over 118,000 youth corps members have been trained in financial literacy, while about 70,000 are being trained across the 37 NYSC orientation camps in the country.

The Managing Director, NNPC Foundation, Emmanuella Arukwe,who spoke during the training described financial literacy as not only the bedrock of all successes in the ever-competitive labour market, but a journey towards attaining self-actualization, thereby heralding the trajectory to sustainable prosperity of the nation.

She implored the corps members to leverage on the knowledge garnered from the training to avert white collar job syndrome,adding that the NNPC Foundation is committed to impacting the youth corps members to become employers of labour.

“We are partnering with both NYSC and Kudimata to bring financial literacy to the corps members, as this will help them make better-informed decisions. We are very passionate about young people and NYSC is a veritable ground as it cuts across 20 to 30 years old youth, thus, making it the right demography.

“This programme cuts across the 36 states of the country including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). This is the first step towards a series of programmes that will culminate in instilling entrepreneurship in the Corps members. After this training, those who pass the examination by 70 percent will move to the next stage. The next stage will keep them better informed on how to run businesses to ensure success in their businesses. Thereafter, we will do a pitching where those who are properly trained will be selected and be given start-up kits to go ahead and be on their own”

Addressing unemployment as the greatest problem of young graduates, she said, “We are aware of unemployment as a challenge plaguing young graduates and we recognize the need to empower the youths through capacity building of this magnitude for them to empower the whole nation. This training will help reduce unemployment and underemployment in Nigeria, thereby making the corps members employers of labour.”

In her remarks, the FCT Coordinator, NYSC, Shokpeka Winifred expressed her profound gratitude to both NNPC Foundation and Kudimata Nigeria Ltd for their unwavering support to empower the corps members to enable them to become self-reliant individuals and wealth creators.

Winifred described the training as a platform for young people to learn the best ways of managing their finances, while also grooming them to become good managers of resources.

“Going forward, I’m confident that they will put what they have learnt to use by utilizing their funds well as they are now aware of how to earn, maintain and multiply their finances. We are striving to see them becoming business owners tomorrow through further mentorship,” the Coordinator added.

One of the corps members at the NYSC orientation camp in Abuja, Prudence Enema said: “I’m thrilled that the NNPC Foundation took their time to train us on financial literacy, we are aware that financial literacy is very important, and we have learnt a lot on how to multiply our money in order not to suffer in the future.”

Another corps member, Okeke Ugochukwu revealed that the training was worthwhile as the importance of saving and categorization of finances were taught effectively.