A major contender for the post of President General in the forthcoming elections into the Maritime Workers Union (MWUN); Comrade Adewale Adeyanju has accused his opponent, Comrade Dahiru Talleh of inciting some disgruntled elements to cause trouble in the port in order to truncate the coming elections.
Adeyanju who is the incumbent President of the Dockworkers Branch of MWUN alleged that Dahiru, was gathering dockworkers who are no longer on the register of the union and who have since been sacked from the port, to ferment trouble.
He called on security agents and port concessionaires to beef-up security at the ports in order to forestall last minute provocation of genuine dockwo0rkers.
In an exclusive chat with Shipping Position Daily in his office at the weekend, Adeyanju alleged that that one Sunday Osho and Olu Agbabiaka are being used to sign various unfounded petitions to security agencies against him and the President General of the union; Comrade Tony Nted Emmanuel.
Adeyanju however assured that the union is not fazed by these, even as he charged all terminal operators to be security conscious within their terminal.
"We hope that the election is going to be free and fair without any distraction because presently, our opponents are trying to cause distractions, trying to truncate the process"
"My opponent is parading people that are not dockworkers, the people he is using are the ones that have been paid-off from the industry and they don't have any stake in the industry"
"I have made this known to the security agents when we were invited last two weeks, I made a bond to government that there would not be any crisis with the dockworkers"
"However, he should be warned, because I know the dockworkers more than him, the people signing the petition on his behalf are not members of the union. They are trying to incite people when we don't need it", he warned.
Comrade Adeyanju revealed that recently, there have been a lot of petitions written against the leadership of the union to the Nigerian Labour Congress, demanding cancellation of the coming elections in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.
He said most of the petitions were signed by Mr. Sunday Osho under the name of one "Alliance Maritime Forum" which he described as a faceless group and non-existing in the constitution of the union.
He however said he has warned his members to shun violence.
He noted that the maritime industry has enjoyed a lot of peace in the past couple of years, assuring that if he is elected as MWUN President, he would build on the successes of the present administration of Comrade Tony Nted
"Areas of insecurity at the port, thugs and tribalism would not be encouraged. In the past, dockworkers believed in their volatile nature. You can imagine when an election is about coming and two weeks to the election, yet there is no fighting. Before now, it has always been fighting, but the outgoing president general is not a violent person, otherwise, my opponent has turned the election into a political arena by writing petitions and taking us to various quarters and telling lies against us, if it were to be in the past, we know what the dockworkers would have done, but we are responsible leaders"
"Our coming in, we would work with the stakeholders to continue where the outgoing president has laid down a standard for us, you are going to see the best executives where all the branches are going to work together and the right of the workers would be given to them"
"I am not scared of losing in the elections, election is not a do or die affair, my opponents are the ones that are scared, and this is why they have been writing petitions" he said.
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