The leadership crisis within the Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD) branch of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) has further deepened as aggrieved suspended members teamed up to conduct parallel elections to select the organisation’s national executives.
The main faction of the organisation, led by embattled suspended national chairman, Comrade Lucky Osesua, briefed journalists at a press conference in Abuja, described the election which was conducted by the opposition on July 3, 2024 in Lagos as a Kangaroo exercise that is null and void, declaring that the party went against the judgement of the National Industrial Court of May 29, 2024.
Addressing the press in company of Comrade Dayyabu Garga, the deputy national chairman, Comrade Humble Ogbonna Power, and other aggrieved members, Comrade Osesua declared that his group did not recognise the election exercise hence it held its own separate election.
Comrade Osesua described his group’s position as a liberation struggle, stressing that they are law abiding persons who have prepared for all the consequences their cause of action for the liberation of PTD will bring.
According to him, ‘the court ordered NUPENG to forthwith put the process for the new election in motion by constituting an all-inclusive Electoral and Caretaker Committee, as ordered in the judgment in Suit No. NICN/YEN/14/2022, who shall conduct the election within 4 months from the date of this judgment’.
“But, NUPENG, on May 31, 2024, released once again discriminatory and selective election guidelines to favour their preferred candidates. This is against the judgement of the court, not equitable, unfair, unjust, and against natural justice” he said.
Continuing he said: “We totally condemn this conterminous act. We condemn the continuous suspension of all our members; all the people suspended had to be readmitted and reinstated to their various units and positions as they were in line with the court judgment of May 29, 2024, as those are the people that will form the delegates.
Once again we reiterate that the court ordered the fresh election to be all-inclusive and nondiscriminatory on any account”.
The group further pledged to remain law abiding and never to work against the seamless policies of President Ahmed Bola Tinubu’s administration, while enjoining members to continue in their pivotal roles of distribution petroleum products across the country.