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Oil workers angry over state of Sagamu-Ikorodu Road, give FG February deadline

By on January 14, 2014

Oil workers at the Mosimi Depot of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation have threatened to embark on an indefinite strike to protest the “deplorable state” of the Sagamu-Ikorodu Road.

The oil workers, under the aegis of the NNPC Depot Mosimi Stakeholders, said the indefinite strike would commence in the first week of February if the appropriate government agencies failed to carry out the necessary rehabilitation on the road.

The spokesperson for the stakeholders, Alhaji Dele Tajudeen, warned that the oil workers would lay down their tools if no action was taken to repair the road by the end of the ultimatum.

Tajudeen, who is also the chairman of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria; in company with the Chairman of the Independent Marketers Branch of NUPENG, Alhaji Taofeek Olayiwola; and his Petroleum Tanker Drivers counterpart, Alhaji Kabiru Ibiyemi, said this on Friday while conducting journalists round the Mosimi section of the Sagamu-Ikorodu Road.

He added that the human and material loss that had been suffered by the Mosimi oil workers due to the poor state of the road had become unbearable.

He said members of the union had lost products and vehicles worth millions of naira to the road, adding that the losses had negatively affected the livelihood of the oil workers.

He said, “At the NNPC in Mosimi here, where we load petroleum products, we are being faced with both human and material losses as a result of the poor state of this road. However, it is annoying that nothing has been done since we have been writing letters to appropriate agencies of government.

“We have evidence to prove that the tankers that had fallen on this road are more than 20.

“The recent one was on December 30 when a tanker load that belongs to FAO Petroleum in Ijebu -Ode got burnt completely. Before that time, Gatelink Petroleum lost full tanker load of diesiel worth about N4.5m.”

He added that the oil workers unions had in the past undertaken the rehabilitation of some sections of the road using their own fund.

“So, on this note, we want to appeal once again to the Federal Government and all the agencies that are concerned about this road,” Tajudeen said.

The Chairman of the Independent Marketers Branch of NUPENG, Alhaji Olayinka Adisa, warned that anything short of rehabilitating the road before the ultimatum expired would not work with the oil workers.

Also, the Chairman of the PTD Branch of NUPENG, Alhaji Ibiyemi Ganiyu, stated that if nothing was done about the road by the end of January, “they will see our action.”

But the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency Engineer for Ogun State, Mr. Alexander Mazoya, told our correspondent on the phone on Sunday that the agency was already mobilising contractors for the rehabilitation of the road.

Mazoya said, “We are already drafting contractors to commence work immediately on the road.”

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