… says they’ve refused to relinquish leadership powers
… as first BOT still holds unto the account
… says COMTUA is waxing stronger
The Council of Maritime Truck Unions Associations (COMTUA) has boldly confronted the founding fathers of the coalition of blackmail, stressing that the first Board of Trustees (BOT) has refused to relinquish powers to the current leadership.
National President of COMTUA, Comrade Adeyinka Aroyewun, made these allegations in a recent online round table with Maritime Reporters Association of Nigeria (MARAN), adding that even the first BOT was yet to allow for a change of signatories to the coalition’s bank account hence, its inability to access the account.
Describing the founding fathers as detractors, he debunked the notion that the coalition is in disarray but that it is firmly intact as a body and waxing stronger.
Therefore, he urged the public and media to disregard the alleged story of dissolution saying it only exists in the imagination of people who, having failed in the bid to have their way, have resorted to a campaign of calumny against the maritime truckers group.
Aroyewun, in his explanation, said that COMTUA as a body noticed certain anomalies in how the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) was operating the Truck Transit Parks (TTP) and the trucks electronic call-up system (Eto) and raised an alarm.
“Those who individually benefited from the anomalies associated with these systems protested because the association’s stance prevented them from achieving their selfish objectives, hence the resort to blackmail,” he explained.
He stated that even a year after coming on-board November 25, 2021, some people who claimed to be founding fathers have not seen the need to relinquish leadership responsibilities to the current leadership under him.
“For example, COMTUA has only one account domiciled with Access Bank. The signatories to that account happened to be the first BOT Chairman of the collaboration in the person of Comrade Aloga Ogbogo, who is currently the Executive Secretary of NARTO, the current President General, Maritime Workers’ Union of Nigeria (MWUN), who is also the co-Chairman of the BOT of COMTUA since 2020 and the third signatory is Otunba Olaleye Thompson who was then the President. The last signatory was Madam Folake George who was the Director of Finance.
“The moment the baton of leadership changed since November 25, 2021, none of these four signatories have voluntarily or otherwise released their signatures for the mandate to change. As I speak with you, we have not been able to access COMTUA’s account as executives in the last one and half years of our administration.
“Secondly, the so-called elders of the collaboration, in the name of the collaboration, got garages, parks and pregate garages for themselves under TTP. The moment COMTUA began to see inadequacies in Eto and TTP arrangement and started challenging these inadequacies, they became uncomfortable.
“These our so-called founding fathers who have been profiting directly or indirectly from TTP legitimately or illegitimately now feel COMTUA is becoming too powerful for them and it is going to cause problems for them. They felt after submitting their resignation letters three years ago, two years ago, last year and some this year, they can come back to say that they have dissolved COMTUA,” the National President explained further.
However, he maintained that the imbroglio within the organisation had since been resolved by the members of the association and that the members of COMTUA did not have any problem amongst themselves presently.
His words: “Those speaking against COMTUA are no longer members of COMTUA. So, we want the media and the general public to disregard any campaign of calumny as it stands now because COMTUA does not have any problem as a collaboration.
“However, we should not fail to remember that there is freedom of association. You can be in or out of association at will and since some people have chosen to be out of the association and they have followed the due process by writing officially to dissociate themselves from the association, it is okay and it has been accepted, that has been settled internally.
“Every other issue that we had among ourselves have been resolved internally and we will continue to do that because we have our internal mechanism to resolve conflicts.
“As an association, we are actually a pressure group to speak for or against the policies of the government and that we have been doing. Some people do not see any reason for us to do that and only if they are members of the association and they are able to convince us against what we are doing, otherwise, we don’t have any issue among ourselves except for people who are no longer members of the collaboration.”
“The noise you are hearing now, are from people that are no longer members of the collaboration and are determined to bring the name and the integrity of the association into disrepute.
“The association will not fold its hands and look at them to engage in a campaign of calumny against the association and beyond that, if they fail to desist from their conduct, the association will not hesitate to take a legal action against them.
Speaking on lack of trust in the leadership of the organisation as the reason the MWUN and the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) left the organisation, he insisted that there was never a time the issue of trust had come up in COMTUA as there had never been any case of financial misappropriation or criminal allegation.
He said: “COMTUA does not have any issue of trust and let me correct you, Maritime Workers’ Union pulled out in 2021 and that was under the administration of Otunba Olaleye Thompson. However, the Maritime Workers’ Union pulled out basically because they are actually not transporters, they are dockworkers, seafarers, NPA employees and so on.
“They came into this collaboration on the ground that they were going to strengthen us whenever we are going to make demands from the government such that they will also embark on industrial action whenever we will be withdrawing our services and on several occasions when we demanded for them to give us this kind of support, they were unable to provide it because of their relationship with the Nigeria Ports Authority and their status as NPA employees.
“They often do not cooperate with us when we have demands to make of NPA. However, we were managing the relationship even though I was not the president at that time. For example, we wrote to NPA demanding to know why the electronic call up regime is not functioning properly and we expected the Maritime Workers’ Union as decided in the meeting to be part of signatories to this letter, but the President of the Maritime Workers Union declined his signature.
“There was never a time the NURTW withdrew their membership of COMTUA. The present co-Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Council of Maritime Transport Unions and Associations is Professor Ibikunle Baruwa who is the President of NURTW.
“COMTUA does not have any issue of trust with anybody. There is nothing like financial misappropriation in COMTUA, there is nothing like criminal allegations in COMTUA and those that actually withdrew their membership from COMTUA, have their personal reasons for doing so and we don’t have a problem with that and we have moved on.
“And as much as about four associations have withdrawn their membership of the collaboration, six more associations have applied and are now members of COMTUA. We have the Green Initiative, Maritime Truck Drivers, the Lekki Fertilizer Group, the Arewa Group, the Marine Beach Operators, Amuwo-Odofin Truck Operators and the rest of them.
“So, the collaboration is ongoing and we are waxing stronger and that is why you are seeing everybody showing concern about the existence of COMTUA. If COMTUA had issues, nobody would want to associate with it.”