COMTUA Accuses MWUN of Tolling 20 Illegal Checkpoints, Destruction of trucks
….Collects N2,000/6,000 Per Trucks At Checkpoint
The Council of Maritime Truck Unions and Associations (COMTUA)has accused the Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN) of tolling 20 Illegal Checkpoints where truckers are daily ripped off .
The National President of COMTUA, Prince Adeyinka Aroyewun, who made this allegation on Monday, lamented that truckers are being extorted daily by government backed touts who position along port access roads and major highways in Lagos.
Lamenting this torrid experience, the president COMTUA stated, “It is with deep frustration that we write to highlight and bring to your notice, the excruciating torture, daily extortion and destruction of trucks our members face in the hands of touts who position along port access roads and major highways in Lagos.
“To say the least, it is sad to note that this brazen illegality continues in broad day light without any modicum of check.
“Letters of complaint and consultation to Park and Garages Committee, Park Administration Committee and Maritime Workers’ Union ( MWUN) on the activities of their members have all fell on deaf ears as non has yielded results.
“Instead of applying civility, they resort to most provocative affront as these groups, in connivance with Government Agencies, increases dues and extortion points.
“To be specific, MWUN operates 20 checkpoints from Coconut to Tin-Can Port Second gate where N2,000 is forcefully collected per point from our members. This is under the watch of the MWUN President-General Comrade Adewale Adeyanju whose main coordinator is Taofeek Shorinola (Also Known and called Sheu Tao). They injure and sometimes kill our members for non-compliance to the extortion.
“Parks and Garages has Abayomi Abeyi Ajele (Also Known and called Ikomodina), Michael Adewale (Also Known and called Hot water) and one Raji (Also known and called Student mount) as coordinators and they control 30 extortion points between mile 2 and Sunrise where between N2,000 and N6,000 are forcefully collected per point.
Park Administrator has Chiboy and Adeleke as coordinators, and they collect money forcefully from truckers around Kirikiri, FATGBEMS, Badagry Express Road and inside the ports.
However, when TodayNews sort clarification from MWUN, the Public Relation Officer, Comrade Erazua Oniha denied this claims by COMTUA, according to him,
” COMTUA is a brainchild of all Maritime Union’s, a child of necessity which was to mitigate the problems bedeviling the Unions and their members but unfortunately they went against the tenets, which was why the Maritime Workers’ Union of Nigeria (MWUN) and some other Unions pulled out of COMTUA.
On the allegation that MWUN man 20 illegal check points, Comrade Oniha said, this does not hold water. “COMTUA has been trying to tarnish our (MWUN) image since we pulled out of the Union.
They wrote us to say that our haulage branch is mounting illegal road blocks, we discovered that this was completely false. Yes our constitution permits the haulage branch to ticket trucks within zones inside the ports but anything outside the the ports is not from our members, so it’s false,” Oniha stated.
Continuing, Oniha said that COMTUA’s accusation of MWUN treating their letter with disdain is not true, in his words, “they wrote us and copied the Commissioner of Police Maritime, the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and we responded appropriately to all these.
On the accusation of collaborating with the newly formed Lagos Parks and Garages Administration Committee, Oniha said that MWUN is even at war with this group because they attacked, maimed and killed 4 of our members at Tin can Port for which after settlement they were asked to pay compensation to the victims, including burying those who were killed, another attack by the same group also reoccurred recently, how can we now collaborate with them? This matter is in the public domain because the Customs Service, Tincan island Command wrote them. So as you can see their claims are frivolous and this is coming up because we left COMTUA,” Comrade Oniha stated.
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