The NURTW shooting in Abuja

VIOLENCE and brigandage have always been the trademarks of transport unions, especially the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), across many cities  and  towns in Nigeria where they operate. They act as outlaws who are wont to breach the law at every turn. And because of their unholy alliance with politicians, they operate with a certain leverage that tends to protect them from the deterrent actions of the security agencies, and even the law. However, the exportation of the NURTW’s acts of lawlessness to Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), is somewhat unusual and symptomatic of the union’s utter disdain for the law and constituted authority. Some residents of Garki, Abuja, were treated to a strange spectacle of violence when two factional groups within the NURTW clashed recently. And in  the  wake of the vicious and violent  attack, one person reportedly died and  many were injured.  As noted earlier, cases of shooting during NURTW clashes are routine but such incidents are rare in Abuja, and that should be worrying.

Pray, why would a workers’ union with a known leadership constitute itself into a nuisance and threat to citizens in a city that harbours all the heads of the three arms of government and the heads of security agencies? That is rather too brazen, and it should be reined in swiftly. It is imperative that the relevant authorities investigate the activities of the union and come up with rules specifying the minimum standards of operation it must conform to, outside of which severe sanctions shall apply.  It seems as if the extant laws and statutes are becoming increasingly incapable of reining in the asocial and even atrocious activities of the union, most probably by reason of sloppy application of the relevant rules. Perhaps a new set of tailor-made rules and regulations will do the magic, and this is important as the NURTW does not only constitute a nuisance and danger to innocent citizens but also to its own members. The government needs to stamp out this menace.

For instance, Nigeria’s motor parks are like an animal kingdom: rowdy, disorderly, riotous and violent. Alcoholic beverages are consumed at will and the air is often filled with marijuana smoke. Everything about the union typifies lawlessness: whether it is regime change within its fold or enforcement of its own rules and so on, NURTW activities always bear a trademark of violence.  This is a pernicious proclivity that must not be allowed to subsist. Transporters’ factional groups wielding assault weapons, shooting and killing each other  is absurd, but it is akin to a sacrilege to do so at the seat of federal power.

Why should the settlement of union disagreements be accompanied with brigandage and destruction of lives and properties? Why should a union be permitted wittingly or unwittingly to ride roughshod on the rule of law, as it were, for so long a time? Why do some of the union leaders seem untouchable? To be sure, there are enough rules in the books for the running of the NURTW and its activities as a labour union, such that it can only be the unholy alliance between its members and politicians that has continued to embolden it to always act outside the precincts of the law. It is believed in some quarters, and perhaps rightly so, that the NURTW is the beehive  of  lawlessness it is today because  politicians use its members for nefarious ends,  especially during elections and political contests. Therefore, it is incumbent on the government  to make up its mind about presiding over and making the country one in which rules and regulations subsist and not one in which force and violence are the instruments of organisation, if the country is to be spared the menace of NURTW violence.

Put more pointedly, we believe that it is the responsibility of  the government and the politicians in government, whose members are known unofficial patrons of the NURTW, to put a stop to this ugly trend and save the country from the menace of a lawless association. It does not bode well for law and order in the society to continue to condone the criminal and morally reprehensible activities of violent non-state actors operating under the umbrella of an otherwise legitimate workers’ union.

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