The tanker drivers branch of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas (NUPENG) workers on Thursday, October 9, 2014 issued a 90-day ultimatum to the federal government, to see to their plight and fix the numerous bad roads they ply with heavy duty tanks across the country or they will embark on a nationwide strike.
According to a report by Daily Times, the tanker drivers stated that they had given an earlier warning about an impending strike in some parts of the south-east and south-south due to unbearable road conditions along the following routes: Port Harcourt-Eleme Junction road, Okigwe-Umuahia road and Jebba-Ilorin road.
The said strike according to the chairman of the tanker drivers association, Salimon Olatidi has entered its second week, as tanker drivers now avoid the affected axis leading to unbecoming conditions for residents in the areas, adding that the strike would have taken a national dimension but for the intervention of the department of state security services, ffederal ministry of petroleum resources and the chairman of Capital Oil Limited.
Olatidi said: “We want to inform Nigerians that after due consideration and wider consultation with stakeholders in the oil and gas industry, we have directed our members to resume work in these areas where we had earlier withdrawn our services.
“We don’t want to state the time duration that we are now giving the government to carry out urgent repairs on these roads as well as others, but if we wait for 60 to 90 days and nothing is done, by the time we strike nationwide people should not blame us”.
“We, like every other Nigerian, are mindful of the hard times and we also feel the pain. So we advise the Federal Government to send emissaries to verify the state of these roads and take palliative measures.The road from Jebba to Ilorin, a distance of about 100km usually takes a whole day for our members to cover. Port Harcourt-Eleme Junction, a distance of about 15km takes over five hours, and the same goes for Okigwe-Umuahia road, as well as a few others across the country.”
He said if the government fails to attend to the roads within the stipulated time frame, the drivers may undertake a strike action.
