MC Oluomo allegedly chased out NURTW staff from union secretariat

The Chairman of Lagos Parks Management Committee, Musiliu Akinsanya, commonly known as MC Oluomo, has been accused of chasing out staff of National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) away from their office with claims that he acted on order from Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu to convert it to the committee’s office.

The accusation was made by the acting Administrator of the Union in Lagos, Oluwaseyi Bankole, who said MC Oluomo had seized the office from the NURTW.

Bankole was reported to have said that all property of NURTW inside the secretariat had been converted to Lagos State Park and Garages Authority and that MC Oluomo went as far as removing the name of the union from the building, using paints.

He said the 11 vehicles belonging to NURTW were also seized by MC Oluomo and also barred the union members from entering the premises , including himself as the acting administrator.

A close source said that MC Oluomo went with some of his thugs to take over the premises two days before he was announced as head of the committee by the state government and that his boys had been causing trouble in the area where the union office is located.

Bankole claimed that the secretariat had been placed under siege by MC Oluomo after deploying members of Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) and other armed men to ensure that no one gained entrance into the premises without his directives.

The acting administrator noted that after taking over the premises, he has repainted the building to remove whatever could link the property to the transport body.

According to him, the move to take over the secretariat started barely two days before the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Gbenga Omotoso, released the names of the 25-man committee for the parks management committee.

“The office was not handed over to him (MC Oluomo), he took over the premises with force. And for now, NURTW does not have access to the building and he has deployed members of Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) to take over the secretariat security,” he said.

Bankole also claimed that MC Oluomo held his inaugural meeting at the secretariat after taking it over and assured all members listed as committee members that the NURTW office would serve as their secretariat.

“When he announced that a meeting will be held with members of the committee, we were less concerned but suddenly we discovered MC Oluomo and some of his loyalists stormed the NURTW secretariat in Agege and they vandalised the union’s property, as well as repainting the building, to reflect their plans.

“And before the final takeover, my office was burgled and tickets worth over N30 million were carted away and investigations revealed that it had been sold to members across the state,” Bankole added.

Sources told WesternPost that the NURTW national body would avoid any action that could cause breach of peace in Lagos, saying that the body would allow the state government to take charge of the situation as well and do the needful by returning the secretariat to the union.

“The secretariat in Lagos belongs to NURTW. It is our office and MC Oluomo came to seize it from us under the name of the Lagos State government. Since we suspended MC Oluomo, we have resolved to be peaceful and will continue upholding that irrespective of any provocation that may arise from the transport union’s former member. Our union is a respected one with members that are law-abiding, and the public should not expect anything otherwise from the body in Lagos and across the country.

Approaching the court of law on this issue is not on the card for now. We know the state government will do the right thing,”, the source said.