The Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD) arm of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), have threatened to pull out of the Union.
The drivers declared that they would breakaway if NUPENG’s National President, Williams Akporeha, and its General Secretary, Olawale Afolabi, failed to resign from their positions.
The tanker drivers disclosed this in a Sunday statement issued in Abuja and jointly signed by Gbenga Olawale and Adekunle Rufai of PTD, Ibadan Depot.
The statement said the drivers staged the protest across the country, by placing plant leaves in front of their trucks.
They however warned NUPENG and the Police against interference and incessant harassment of their leaders.
According to them, Akporeha lacked the required competence to lead the union because he was not a member of the oil union.
Akporeha, they said, was a cook in an oil company from the formal sector and was sacked from the company while holding the office of the national treasurer of NUPENG.
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They further alleged that he was later drafted into the Petrol Station Workers Union of NUPENG to enable him to contest the election as NUPENG President.
This, according to them, was a total departure from the constitution of NUPENG, because
“Williams is not a worker or a pump attendant on record as at the time he was verifying for the president position.
Meanwhile, NUPENG’s secretary has disclosed that the claims were false, as the faction that issued the statement were not PTD members.
Afolabi said the leaders of the faction that issued the statement had been arrested and detained at Kuje prison in Abuja.
“They are not PTD members, their leaders attacked us recently in Abuja and were arrested and jailed in Kuje prison, Abuja, on the orders of the court,” the NUPENG secretary stated.
Socio-political commentator, Shehu Sani, in reaction to the development via X said: “NUPENG and Petroleum Tanker Drivers should amicably resolve their differences. The people should not be subjected to another session of untold and avoidable hardships through a needless strike.”
