₦airaland Forum

Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria, MWUN, yesterday made good its threat to shut the nation’s ports operations over lingering disputes with government.

Some of the grievances of the union are unpaid wages and other issues affecting the Tally Clerks/On-board Security, minimum standard for Dockworkers and NPA staff welfare matters among others.

Reports shows that workers were withdrawn from their duty posts across the port formations in Lagos, Warri, Port Harcourt’s, Calabar and Onne, effectively crippling all operations nationwide. Both Presidents of Dockworkers and Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA branches of MWUN, Mr.

Adewale Adeyanju and Adeleke Sanni, respectively, addressed the workers at both Apapa and Tin Can Ports and assured them that the issues would be fought to a logical conclusion.

Lamenting the loss incurred as a result of the strike, President of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents, ANLCA, Alhaji Shittu Olayiwola said when members of the MWUN were on strike, the agents would not be able to work. According to Shittu, “agents cannot work because the Dockworkers are needed to do examination on containers just as stevedores are also needed for vessels to discharge.

Shittu called on the management of NPA to rise up to the occasion and resolve the matter for industrial peace of the industry, saying “for every day that the ports are shut, both the Federal Government and other port operators lose not less than N10billion.

It is not just members of the freight forwarding groups; everybody is affected whenever there is a strike of this magnitude.”

The Department of State Services (DSS) has blamed the ongoing nationwide strike embarked upon by members of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) on oil giant, TOTAL Nig. Plc., saying that the company reneged on an agreement with the union.

DSS spokesperson Marilyn Ogar, while addressing the media yesterday on the strike, urged Nigerians associated with TOTAL’s management to compel it to end the suffering they had imposed on Nigerians by keeping the said agreement.

Ogar further disclosed that the matter was brought to the DSS office by PENGASSAN officials in November, following which the Service summoned TOTAL’s managing director Elizabeth Proust, saying the oil giant’s recalcitrance triggered the industrial action.

“The issue is the ongoing strike by NUPENG and PENGASSAN which is biting hard on all Nigerians. We want to state that in November, 2014, PENGASSAN had written the Service to make a formal complaint about the transfer of Elo Victor Ogbonda to Lagos from Port Harcourt by TOTAL after she was elected as a zonal executive of the union,” said Ogar.

“Consequently, this Service summoned the managing director of TOTAL, Elizabeth Proust, on November 5, 2014, to resolve the dispute. It was agreed that Ogbonda would be re-instated, posted back to Port Harcourt and granted leave of absence for the period she would serve as an executive of PENGASSAN.”

Ogar said that PENGASSAN later informed the DSS that TOTAL had reneged on its promise to recall Ogbonda.

“Consequently, this Service contacted TOTAL and was informed that the company will not go back on its sack order. All entreaties to the company failed, thus culminating in the current strike and the attendant fuel scarcity,” Ogar said.

A Grant Court of the Cayman Islands has granted Access Bank Plc leave to sell more of the properties belonging to former managing director of the defunct Intercontinental Bank Plc, Dr Erastus Akingbola recently discovered on the Island.

The court also asked Akingbola to pay Access Bank N238,471,484,162 and £1,800,000 with interest from April, 2014 until payment.

A London High Court in July 2012 had also asked the embattled former bank chief to pay Access Bank N164 billion while delivering judgement in a recovery action filed by the then Intercontinental Bank in order to recover the bank’s funds he allegedly fraudulently converted and misappropriated.

Access Bank had acquired Intercontinental Bank on January 31, 2012 after the bank was taken over by the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON).

The leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) yesterday denied insulting President Goodluck Jonathan but faults his economic policies.

The ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been consistently accusing the opposition party of insulting the president.

But speaking with journalists at the party national secretariat in Abuja, it’s spokesman, Alhaji Lai Mohammed said his party is only out to do its work as opposition party.

“Now has anybody ever insulted Mr. President except talked about his policies. If l say that this government is clueless l am not talking personal. I am only saying that the government has no clear policy of the economy. I am saying that this government cannot tackle insurgency.

l am saying that this government has been unable to provide employment . I am stating the facts.