by Tola Adenle
The National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), at least in the Southwest, has become a law unto itself and it is time government bans it now because it is the same government at various levels that empowered the union’s leaders for political expediency.
Late General Abacha, who needed more than a little help enforcing his evil rule, got what has now become a union headed by terrorists and enforcers for political leaders going, a terror group whose hands were strengthened during retd. General Obasanjo’s presidency.
Without the NURTW, there would not have been the pseudo legitimacy of an Adedibu, the late so-called “strongman of Ibadan”, a euphemism for “war lord”. It’s too recent to recall that Obasanjo once described the rabble rousing PDP enforcer as “the issue” in Yorubaland politics for a long time. The former president, whose verdict of history is already in, once suggested to Ladoja, Oyo State’s governor, to share his security allocation with the late Alhaji Adedibu! The monthly security allocations running into millions, of course, is the piggy bank that needs not be accounted for by for state governors.
A year or so ago, there was a news report about the goings-on in the Lagos’ NURTW, a report that contained the fact that the NURTW head rides a hummer and controls such huge wealth that one wonders how state governors would not realize that this kind of financial empowerment would one day backfire and lead to the kind of mayhem that happened in Lagos in the early hours of yesterday.
At motor parks, there are commercial vehicles labeled ‘NURTW’ but are actually owned by these men who are nothing but enforcers for party leaders in the states. Under Ladoja but especially under the Akala administration at Oyo State, the clashes between the two factions of this union were so often and so virulent that nobody knows exactly the number of lives lost and the properties damaged –encouraged by those who were supposed to protect lives and properties. Even at a particular quarry at Ibadan, the Akala-era leader of the union leader had several trucks that get priority in loading every day.
What happened in Lagos is a clear pointer to the need for state governors and others who empower thugs as protectors to put an end to throwing tons of money at these people. They are constitute a big menace to society.
Here is the link to the PM News of yesterday on the mayhem in Lagos:
http://pmnewsnigeria.com/2012/02/20/lagos-island-boils-4-dead-houses-vehicles-burnt/