NURTW denies feud with Ogun government

The new Ogun State Chairman, National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), Alhaji Mustapha Ismail, a.k.a Yaro Ade, has denied insinuations that his group is averse to Governor Dapo Abiodun’s administration.

Ismail, who disclosed this yesterday, in Abeokuta, sued for peace between the warring factions in the state. Speaking shortly after he led other executive members to take over the secretariat located at Asero, Abeokuta, barely three months after the Police sealed the office to forestall clash between the warring factions over leadership tussle, Ismail vowed to pursue unity within the union.

The new chairman, in March, secured a judgment of the National Industrial Court, declaring him as the duly elected Chairman of the union in the state.

He said: “When we entered the secretariat, accompanied by Police officers from headquarters, we met the place looted. My belief is that the people that left this Secretariat helped to keep the property, they didn’t steal it. Nobody can steal union’s property; everything that is in the union’s office belongs to the union, as time goes on, when we get to the bridge, we would know how to cross it.

“We still consider them as our members. What we did today is to unseal our office to begin union activities in our Secretariat and for us to maintain our union in the state. Our union has rules, procedures and we have organs.”

He stated after many adjournments, his faction got a judgment in March 17, 2020 in its favour, but “we couldn’t implement it because of COVID-19 and shortly after that our Secretariat was sealed by the police. They claim the sealing was prompted because we were going to fight, we were going to cause crisis but we told them that we are not causing any crisis.”