Workers in the Nigerian maritime industry under the aegis of the Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN) and the Senior Staff Association of Communication, Transport and Corporation (SSACTAC) today grounded activities at the nation’s seaports.
The action which lasted between the hours of 6am and 12pm was to protest the contentious amendment of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) Act.
Speaking to newsmen on the sideline of the protest, the National President of the MWUN, Adewale Adeyanju stated that the action, which was total and cut across all ports in the country, was a warning protest aimed at stopping further amendment of the NPA Act.
He said, “Our members nationwide today, from Rivers ports to Calabar ports down to Onne, Lagos and Tin-Can ports trooped out to protest amendment of the NPA Act by some perceived vested interest under the guise of the Ports and Harbours Bill.
“We practically grounded ports activities from 6am today and just called off the protest by noon because the protest is a warning. If they don’t stop the policy of throwing workers out of their jobs under the guise of amending the NPA Act, what will follow next will be worse than what happened today.”
Adeyanju noted that if the Bill is passed into law it would lead to massive job loss to members of the union as item 6 of the second schedule of the Bill stated that not all the staff of the NPA would be absolved into the Harbour Authority.
According to him, “Experience has thought us what happened in the past when the seaports were concessioned 10years ago, government said nobody will lose their job but from what we are about to see right now, if this bill is passed into law then thousands of workers in the maritime industry will lose their jobs.
“The bill if passed will send dockworkers, seamen, shipping operators, staff of NPA to the labour market and the bill does not make provision for those who will not be absolved because there will be no payment for them by the new Nigerian Harbour Authority”.
He continued,”We want to use this medium to appeal to members of the NASS and its leaders to throw away this bill because it seeks to do more harm to the majority and favour the few individuals promoting it. Most especially,we urged Honourable Ossai for the interest of Nigerians to withdraw this bill and stand on the side of the people”.
Also speaking, the President of SSACTAC, Comrade Benson Adegbeyeni accused members of the National Assembly of shortchanging Nigerians having been voted into power by the people.
Adegbeyeni recalled that the 2006 port concession had led millions of Nigerians to job loss and the union would never allow such to come again through this bill.
The SSACTAC President noted that the bill when passed would not make any form of provision for workers that might be disengaged pointing out that “NPA of 10 years ago till date is an eyesore”.
He informed that the bill when passed into law would enslave Nigerians stressing the need for harbour operations to be the sole responsibility of the government and not private individuals.
“On our part as organised labour, we unequivocally reject this bill and to show our resolve, as we speak with you, all the ports formations nationwide have been shutdown since 6am today and we are determined to ensure that Nigeria and Nigerians are not shortchanged by this obnoxious bill”, he added.
He said the purpose of the Bill was to strip workers of their common wealth through further concession of harbour operations in the guise of amending port Act of 1955.
As at the time of filing in this report, workers who had partook in the protest were seen waiving different placards and fliers kicking against further amendment of the NPA Act.
Many trucks that wanted to go into the ports to pick containers were trapped outside due to the crowd in front of the Lagos ports and Tin-Can ports entrance, while trucks that were scheduled to have left the ports could not load cargoes due to absence of workers to work on such cargoes before loading process.
Send your news, press releases/articles to augustinenwadinamuo@yahoo.com. Also, follow us on Twitter @reportersinfo and on Facebook on facebook.com/primetimereporters or call the editor on 07030661526, 08053908817.
