Fuel scarcity looms in Ondo, Ekiti over NUPENG leadership crisis

A crisis is looming within the oil and gas workers’ union in Ore, under the auspices of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas (NUPENG), over the leadership of the union, as members of the union threatened not to allow any tanker carrying fuel supply to Ondo and the Ekiti States to leave the depot until the leadership crisis is resolved.

The union members hinged their decision to halt the supply of fuel to the two states on the refusal of the leadership of the union to vacate their position after spending eight years at the helms of affairs.

The members of the union who stated this yesterday while speaking with newsmen accused the leadership of deliberately refusing to conduct a new election to usher in new leadership for the union barricaded the unit office in Ore and vowed not to allow the leadership to gain entrance into the office.

According to them, the leaders deliberately refused to conduct an election alleging the leaders of bribing the zonal leadership of the association in Warri for N10 Million in order to remain in office without an election.

They, however, demanded a fresh election that would produce new leadership for the association, saying no tanker would be allowed to leave the depot for Ondo or Ekiti states.

A prominent member of the association and former chairman of the Akure branch, Akintomide Olatuja explained that “What happened was that, we had an issue here in Ore Unit. There are people who have been leading us for the past eight years and they are planning to remain in office.

“We petitioned the Commissioner of police and copied the Director of DSS, Civil Defense and the Special Adviser to the Governor on Union matters. What we are demanding is that elections should be conducted and nothing else. After the whole saga, the Commissioner of Police invited the two parties and settled it

“We agreed that the zonal leaders will come from Warri on the 29th of April and address us. We were still waiting for the 29th of April when we realized that on the 21st of April, these set of people namely: Chairman, Waheeb Abiloye; Tajudeen Aduwo, Deputy chairman 1, Henry Akinmoladun, Deputy Chairman 2, Sunday Akindasha, and others, were already in Warri and the leadership in the Warri sworn them in as caretaker members.

“Since then, we have closed down this office here and we are saying that unless an election is conducted, we will not allow them to go into this office. They have spent eight years.

“Some of them in the executive has spent 16 years. Just ten of them can not hold over hundreds of us unto ransom. We have it on good authority that the Warri leadership was bribed with N10 million.

He specifically alleged a former House of Representatives who is the patron of the association in the Southwest of fueling the crisis, saying “he doesn’t want us to hold any election. The current leadership is filled with his loyalists and they are bringing party affiliations into our association matters.

“This is what we are resisting. The Warri leadership has threatened not to allow any tanker to bring fuel to Ondo and Ekiti if we don’t allow the Waheeb Abiloye -led old exco to gain access to our office. But we are saying unless an election is held, we are not allowing them to enter this office. We are determined to see this to the end.

“As we speak, our tankers are not allowed to get to Ore, we tried using Ekiti waybill but now they have started stopping Ekiti too. People should help us beg the patron to leave this association matters to us and stop intervening.

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Fuel scarcity looms in Ondo, Ekiti over NUPENG leadership crisis