The Commerce Africa African Reneissance
Related Articles
Oluwasina Phillip
The Petroleum Tanker Drivers branch of the Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) has resolved to begin strike on October 8 if the Federal Government fails to meet their three demands.
The National Chairman of the Union, Otunba Salman Oladiti who made this disclosure, called on the Federal Government to reconstruct all the bad portions of the roads, enhance the enforcement of 45,000 loading capacity and ensure all trucks have safety valve devices.
The implication of the strike action is that the transportation of petroleum products would be adversely affected.
When this happens, the country may witness shortage of petrol thus resulting to fuel scarcity.
He said, “By the end of this week, if nothing is done about our demands, we will go on strike proper on the 8 of next month.
“Before now, we gave government ultimatum of 21 days, 14 days and 7 days. But, due to intervention, we suspended it.
“This time around, we don’t need to give notice again. We will act on what we have suspended before.
“We have three demands and they are- Reconstruction of all the bad portion of the roads, limiting the loading capacity to 45,000 litres and enforcement of safety valve devices on trucks.
“We do not say the government should construct all the Nigerian roads at the same time but do a comprehensive palliative intervention on all the bad portions that can make our members stay in a certain place for two-five days.
“It happened in other areas- Calabar-Odukpani, Warri -Benin, Okenne-Lokoja. These roads are very bad.
“We agreed on 45,000 capacity and that any load that exceeds 45,000, the government should disallow it through the tank farm owners.
“Any tank farm owner that load above 45,000 have to be sanctioned. Based on this, some went with the perception that we wanted to cause fuel scarcity.”
