By VICTOR AHIUMA-YOUNG
MARITIME Workers Union of Nigeria, MWUN, has warned that the activities of the terrorist group in Nigeria are hindering business operations and called on government to take concrete steps in addressing the level of insecurity in the country.
This came as the union said the prevailing industrial peace in the nation's maritime sector was due to continued training and retraining of maritime workers, resulting to better understanding that the workers, management and investors in the sector were beneficiaries where peace prevailed.
President-General of MWUN, Comrade Anthony Nted, who disclosed this, said the union in the last few years had deliberately focused on regular domestic and international training programmes for members, exposing them to international best practices with emphasis on dialogue in the resolution of industrial disagreement rather than violence and brute force.
Nted who was addressing government officials, labour leaders, maritime workers, employers and other stakeholders at the commissioning of the MWUN's building in Abuja and National Executive Council, NEC, of the union in Lagos, that the various trainings to which members had been exposed have deepened their knowledge of the gains of industrial harmony for individual and national development.
According to Nted, "what is happening in the sector is a paradigm shift from the past where the maritime workers at inception in 1996, had their activities and image dominated by record of violence, industrial unrest, ruthlessness and factional uprisings which negated the very essence of trade unionism.
Today, the image and character of the maritime workers' union has gone through a thorough reformation. The union now engages in dialogue instead of violence, in settling issues/disputes. This has created conducive atmosphere for business transactions and fresh investments in the maritime sector.
We intend to continue because we believe in the education of members."
He, however, frowned at what he called the long delay in the payment of the entitlements of dockworkers by the Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA, despite approval to this effect by the Managing Director, warning that while the union since 2010 when the payment was due, had prevailed on the dockworkers to be calmed, it might within the next one week, be compelled to direct the dockworkers to withdraw their services and ground port operations nationwide.
He said "Should this continue to happen, we would demand that individuals sitting on the payment and refusing the sector to move forward, be removed from office before the workers are directed to return to work"
Speaking on insecurity Comrade Nted said business activities have slowed in northern Nigeria, largely due to insecurity.
Nted lamented that there had been an outrageous drop in earnings for nearly all businesses in states like Kano, Kaduna and Benue, adding that terror attacks had also crippled the activities of some telecommunications firms in the north.
MWUN's President-General said "We decry the level of insecurity in this country, especially in the north. We are yet to cope with high level infrastructural decay, poor educational standard, increasing unemployment and many other anomalies, not to talk of unceasing bombings.
How are we going to forge ahead and achieve our vision for year 2020 when all these challenges are not adequately addressed? As we struggle to handle other issues confronting us as a nation, we must understand that insecurity is the worst challenge capable of scaring investors away rapidly."
"And when this happens, there will be such a huge delay in the development of our nation. Many workers have lost their loved ones, friends and relatives to these dastardly acts of bombings and no worker in his right sense will want to work in any of these states.
Those that are there are crying and living in fear and their confidence has dropped, but they are just there because they have to survive. It is time the government take a decisive action to nip the ugly trend in the bud before it explodes beyond what we are seeing now. Workers are tired of hearing 'there is no cause for alarm' from the government, because if this continues, one day there will be cause for alarm!"
Vanguard Nigeria
no one needs to tell us that.we know so
Stale story, we all know nothing thrives in the absence of peace.