NURTW disowns Lagos elders council, threatens legal action over petition

The national headquarters of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) has said the Lagos NURTW Elders Council is illegal as the union constitution does not make provision for such.

It said the national body might be forced to take a legal action against members of elders’ council if they failed to desist from character assassination of the union’s President, Tajudeen Baruwa.

It also stated that many of the problems facing the union in the South-West region were created by the immediate past administration.

The national body stated these while reacting to a petition written the Lagos union’s elders council to the Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, Assistant Inspector General of Police and Commissioner for Police for Lagos State.

The Baruwa-led NURTW has been in a running leadership battle with the Lagos State Chairman of the uinin, Musiliu Adesanya (aka MC Oluomo) leading to the suspension of the latter and takeover of motor park activities in the state by the state government.

The union in the statement titled, ‘Setting the Record Straight’ and signed by Comrade A.C. Asogwa, the Deputy General Secretary (Education), stated that the elders council lacked the locus standi to operate let alone write the petition as the forum is alien to the constitution of the union.

According to him, the union has about 13 different organs as stipulated in its constitution, adding the council of elders “can be described as compromised interlopers playing out a script written by their pay masters.”

On the allegation that the NURTW president was running the union like his private property, the statement said the elders group exposed their lack of knowledge of the workings of the union constitution, as they (elders) failed to pinpoint the particular breach of the constitution by the president.

On the allegation that the national body  constitution of caretaker committee for Lagos was meant to create chaos, the national body in the statement explained “the action of the union was in line with the dictates of the union’s constitution,”, adding, “the duties and functions of the union’s caretaker committee is distinct from the Lagos State park management committee. The Lagos state park management committee cannot run the affairs of union.”

The union also said some states in the South-West such as Oyo, Ondo and Ogun were plunged into crisis by immediate past administration and that the present administration had been doing everything possible to manage and correct some of the problems.