Anxiety Grips COMTUA As Maritime Workers Union Threatens to Pull Out

By DAPO OLAWUNI
The Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN) has threatened to pull out of the Coalition of Maritime Truckers Union Association (COMTUA) a body set up in 2018 by an amalgamation of truck owners association and union to speak with one voice and pursue a common goal of ending the notorious Apapa traffic gridlock
President General of MWUN, Comrade Adewale Adeyanju stated this while addressing journalists in Lagos on Wednesday.
DAILY TREND NEWS recalls that qhen the Coalition was formed last year, Comrade Adeyanju was made the Chairman while Comrade Aloga Ogbogo, Executive Secretary of National Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO) was made Vice Chairman.
COMTUA, a child of necessity, is made up of MWUN, NARTO, Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria (RTEAN) and Corporate Truck Owners Association of Nigeria.
Comrade Adeyanju alleged that the various associations that made up COMTUA are not sincere to themselves and that the Coalition in recent times has been pursuing individual personal interests.
“We were only part of them because we were looking for solution to the traffic gridlock, but don’t be surprised that any moment from now we would pull out from them”
“There is a difference between unionism and an association, the association would always try to look for a way of generating revenue, while in the union we believe in welfarism of our members”
“But the way I am seeing it now, its like there is no sincerity among the COMTUA, some of them still believe in their olden says style of unionism, and you cannot compare trade unionism with that of association, they are employers and business men, and the crisis you see on the road now is that everybody wants to go and tell their employers and masters they have thirty trucks on the road and they are being prevented from entering the port”
“If there is sincerity of purpose, its more than a year now, the gridlock is not supposed to be there again”
The MWUN boss said that COMTUA members were undermining the efforts of the Presidential Task Force controlling the Apapa gridlock, adding that some of them were also the ones that pushed the Navy out of controlling the Apapa gridlock through series of complaint letters.
He said “The same COMTUA wrote that the Navy were not controlling the traffic better, they brought in the Presidential Task Force, and yet some of them are undermining the efforts of the Presidential task force that we are talking about because they are business men, and you cannot force them”
“The way I am seeing things right now, when you travel to a place whereby you don’t know the structure, you need to be very careful, this is the way I found myself with COMTUA, we believe that we can partner together because of the bad roads and this was why we came together”
“Initially they had JCOST, I was involved, but later I pulled out and dissolved our members from operating with them”
“But with the way things are going now, if I find out that COMTUA are not being sincere with themselves, the maritime workers union will pull out so that we can face our normal activities as a union” he said