NUPENG threatens to down tools over security agents attack on members

Unless government intervened, the National Union of Petroleum Tanker Drivers have threatened to stop loading fuel and gas from depots across the country, citing high handedness of security agents and other illegal activities that are frustrating their effort.

The association is a branch of National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, (PTD– NUPENG).
Expressing their grievances at a press conference on Wednesday, the tanker drivers specifically maintained that the Military Task Force operating in the Port Harcourt zone of the Union are involved in illegal activities.
National Chairman of the PTD- NUPENG, Comrade Lucky Osesua told journalists in Abuja on Wednesday that men of the Military Task Force operating in Port Harcourt burnt two trucks conveying HPFO, otherwise known as black oil on Tuesday night on false allegation that the truck drivers were transporting crude oil.

According to the PTD- NUPENG National Chairman, the trucks with plate numbers, EFR 770 XA and AFZ 351 ZY lifted the black oil at a modular refinery, Walter Smith Refinery and Petrochemical Ibigwe, Imo State, on Monday and Tuesday, and were intercepted between Ahoada and Elele in Rivers State by the task force.

According to him, the trucks were conveying 40,000 liters each of the Black Oil to Bob & Sea Depot Koko Delta State and the drivers were polite in their responses and presented all the necessary documents to officers of the military who ignored the documents, rebuffed appeals and burnt the trucks.

The PTD- National Chairman who presented the documents to newsmen said: “The drivers presented WayBills, NUPENG receipts, and quality control documents, but the military men still insisted that they carried crude oil.”
“They drove the two trucks away and burnt them between Ahoada and Elele in Rivers State, on Tuesday night without investigation; without reaching out to the refinery, where the drivers mentioned that they lifted the Black Oil, the soldiers burnt down the trucks, in less than five hours.”

The PTD- NUPENG National Chairman, who also presented to journalists documents signed by Charles Okon, Refinery Manager of Walter Smith Refinery and Petrochemical, where the products were loaded said the Union has taken a decision to stop lifting products at its Port Harcourt zone, stressing that the same decision to stop loading nationwide would be taken by Monday except damages incurred as a result of the high-handedness of the Military Task Force were addressed.

“Enough is enough about the high-handedness of our security agents. They should stop demonising our Union and persecuting our men who are doing their normal business.
“We expect that in this modern world, trained security agents should be able to identify black oil as against crude oil. We should not be at the receiving end of their ignorance.”

Comrade Osesua further revealed that in a desperate move to clean up their actions, the soldiers mobilised those who pick scraps to the sight of the burnt trucks.