By Ifeanyi Onuba, Abuja

Monday, 22 Nov 2010

The Petroleum Tanker Drivers’ branch of the National Union of Petroleum Natural Gas Workers has issued a seven-day ultimatum to the Federal Government. It is demanding a N50m compensation for the family of one of its members (Mohammed Saidu) who was reportedly shot dead while on official duty.

The group said that the killing of Saidu was the high point of continued harassment of its members by some military personnel.

The union also requested that the alleged killer of Saidu “must be brought to justice, while the trucks seized at Bori Barracks Port-Harcourt and the one at Odogbo Barracks Ojo, Ibadan, be released forthwith.”

The group also demanded that the management of MRS Oil and Gas Limited should reinstate 2,500 of its members who were reportedly sacked without due process.

Addressing journalists on Sunday in Abuja, the President of the PTD branch, Mr. Timothy Ogbu, said the late Saidu, aged 42, and an employee of Himmah Merchants Nigeria Limited, was killed on November 6, while driving an Iveco truck.

Ogbu recalled that before the incident, members of the union had suffered “all manners of harassment and humiliation in the hands of the military and security personnel and all efforts in the past to get the authorities to help bring the culprits to justice had yielded no response.”

One of such incidents, he alleged, “was the open display of impunity by military men in Port Harcourt when an accident involving some army personnel and a petroleum tanker carrying 33,000 litres of low pour fuel oil occurred.

“The tanker was taken to Bori camp in Port Harcourt. Similarly a 33,000-litre capacity truck under Akamoe Investment was impounded at Odogbo Barrack Ojo, Ibadan after beating the driver mercilessly on allegations that the truck caused an accident that affected soldiers on Ife-Ibadan Expressway last April.”

 

Source: Punch