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The Ogun state Chairman of the National Union of Road Transport Workers, Alhaji Ismail Mustapha has lamented that the union Secretariat in the state has been looted.
The situation of the Secretariat occured after its closure during the prolonged leadership crisis of the union.
The looting was uncovered on Friday after the police led members of the new executive of the union led by it’s Chairman Ismail Mustapha to unseal the office located at Asero, Abeokuta.
The office which had over grown weeds as a result of it’s closure was almost empty following the disappearance of some property belonging to the union in the state .
The Secretariat was shut down barely three months ago by police to forestall clash between the warring factions in the leadership tussle .
The new chairman had in March secured a judgement of the National Industrial Court, declaring him as the duly elected Chairman of the union in the state.
Addressing journalists after the taking over of the union secretariat, Mustapha lamented that the office had been looted.
He said appropriate steps would be taken to retrieve the items, just as he sued for peace between the warring factions.
He however ruled out insinuations that his group was not in support of Governor Dapo Abiodun’s government, saying “we are not fighting government.”
He said “When we entered this Secretariat today around accompanied by police officers from headquarters we met the place looted.
” My belief is that the people that left this Secretariat helped us to keep our loads, they didn’t steal it. Nobody can steal the 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 know how to cross it.
“We still consider them as our members. What we did today is to unseal our office to begin our union activities in our Secretariat and for us to maintain our union in the state.
“Our union has rules, has procedures and what we met here we are going to write our national headquarters and national headquarters knows the necessary steps to take about the issue.
“We don’t want to drag anybody to the police. We are still appealing to them to come back because we cannot do it alone. We are calling on them to come and join us, sooner or later we will soon resolve our internal crisis.
“The Secretariat was sealed in July 9. One of the reasons they sealed the Secretariat, according to the police was to avert crisis.”
Speaking on the union relationship with government, he said “People said we are fighting the government, we are not fighting the government. Our election came in December 12 in 2019 our counterpart took us to court. After many adjournments, we got a judgement in March 17, 2020 in our favour.
” After the judgement, we couldn’t implement it because of COVID-19 and shortly after that our Secretariat was sealed by the police. They said they had to seal our Secretariat because we were going to fight, we were going to cause crisis but we told them that we are not going to fight and we are not going to cause any crisis.”
