NURTW Clash: CP Lagos Enforces Binding Order To Keep Peace

LUCKY LAWAL

After serious crisis, which led to loss of lives, damage of properties and breach of peace within the community on Lagos Island, the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, CP Hakeem Odumosu, who had vow to deal with miscreants who try to make Lagos State uninhabitable for innocent citizens, has summoned the executive members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers and Idumota Branch C members, Idumota Eko Branch, where the crisis generated from, to sign a binding order to keep peace within the union and resolve any internal crises within themselves without breaching the peace of the society or face the full wrath of the law.

The peace accord took place at the Lagos State Police Command, Ikeja, on Friday 17th January, 2020, in the presence of the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Hakeem Odumosu, other Senior Police Officers, Legal Practitioners and Journalists.

The CP welcomed all the parties to the Command. While addressing them, he said, “We are all living witnesses to what happened on Lagos Island recently, where people were injured and vehicles were vandalized. We cannot fold our arms and allow it to continue happening because our principal duty is to protect lives and property of the people in the State.
According to him, The crisis is between two factions of NURTW, Branch C, Lagos island.
“About four weeks ago, the streets of Lagos Island were in crisis; two innocent people were killed and properties were damaged as a result of the crisis on the island. We cannot fold our arms at all and allow all these to happen. Our duties are to protect lives and properties. When these incidences were going on, we did our underground research. In the course of our investigations, we discovered that NURTW members of Lagos Island Branch C were the ones fighting. Investigation further revealed that the fight was between the two strong leaders in that area. So when we called on Mustapha Adekunle, popularly known as Sego and Azeez Adekunle, popularly known as Kunle Poly and some other group members; we discovered the fighters were followers of the two leaders fighting for supremacy.”
“Unionism is guided by the rule of law; there are regulations. The Chairman of the State National Union of Road Transport Workers, Alhaji Musiliu Akinsanya, a.k.a MC Oluomo and the executive members are all here and they have promised us that they are going to call their members to order.”
“If you cannot do your unionism within the ambits of the law, then the law will take its cause; that is why we have the Chairman and executives members to sign a peace accord with the Police and call their members to order. But if they don’t, the law will take its cause and it will be enforced. They must promise the whole Lagos State that there will be no more problem within them in any part of Lagos and they should learn to resolve their union problem within or they risk arrest. We are only taking them by their words to maintain peace” he said.
“They will be signing the binding order and anybody who goes against the bond order form after signing will be arrested and prosecuted.”
The accord to maintain peace over the leadership of the NURTW on Lagos Island, to reframe from all forms of hate speech within the union whether in secret or public and to support all security order was signed with the sum of N2m with two sureties and if any of the parties fail to abide with the accord, he will be arraigned before the Court of competent order.
The Lagos State NURTW Chairman, Alhaji Musiliu, a.k.a MC Oluomo said he intervened in the problem of the union from Lagos Island because it was getting out of hand. He said he has reported the members before and they were arrested and the Police took their forensic details and an undertaking was signed to maintain peace.
According to MC Oluomo, “When the crisis started, I called the leadership, warned them and seized their phones from them. I reported them when they were trying to destroy my Chairmanship. It’s the Lagos Island two leaders’ boys that were fighting for supremacy. The boys were actually fighting themselves”.
“The Lagos State Government does not want miscreants hiding under the leadership of NURTW. I have warned and told them that the Lagos State Government does not like to see them with dangerous weapon or using them for political thuggery.”
“When I heard about the fracas, I took steps by visiting the scenes of the crime and I summoned both parties for interrogation and made both parties to write undertaking.”
“As it continued, I was also summoned and was invited over the fracas.
But when I invited the two factions to ask what was their problems on the Island, Azeez Adekunle a.k.a Kunle Poly, was the first person to collect the microphone to say that people, who are members of the National Union under Mustapha Adekunle, popularly known as Sego, were the ones fighting.”
“And before this time, I have called them to write undertaking that they will no longer cause trouble on the Island again; that as leaders,can’t they talk to their boys instead of misleading them. I took another step by reporting them to Lagos State Police Command because I saw it as the next thing to do.”
MC Oluomo also said, “I noticed that some of these people are not Union members and they came with them. I asked Kunle Poly on how to solve the fracas within them. He replied that ‘people on the Island are all here and they pointed to themselves and with immediate effect I handed them over to Area ‘G’ Command Ogba, which was close by and we were all summoned”.
“From there, I collected all their leaders’ phones. After collecting their mobile phones, I insisted that they should go, look for their group members and drag them to the Command. Thereafter, they teamed up with some Police Officers and got them all arrested.”
“When they brought them before the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, CP Hakeem Olusegun Odumosu, he had seen them. After all, from his investigation he had seen people making this trouble on the Island. My own is that they should release my men since their investigations had proved that my boys were not the ones causing trouble on the Island.”
Once they release them, I will still take them to the State Council to write undertaking, solid undertaking that fracas will no longer occur on Lagos Island and if it should happen again, I will personally hand them over to the Police, in fact I will not spare anyone.”
“We came for peace and I believe that the CP had done the right thing by inviting the whole members to State Command headquarters. Even before I became the State Chairman, I was doing my best in the area of Community Policing; we are all Lagosians and I believe if anything happens nobody knows who will suffer it. We have earlier informed the Police that there were some people who are not Union members but hiding under National Union.”
“I’m using this medium to tell the CP that I’m ready to cooperate with him because I don’t want anything to damage my tenure; what I want is peace. Even the Executive Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu, had earlier said that he wants peace and I want peace to reign in my terrain” he concluded.