•Want ex-workers’ entitlements paid 28 years after
By Victor AhiumaYoung
The Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria, MWUN, has rejected plans by the federal government to re-float the Nigeria National Shipping Line, NNSL, 28 years after liquidation by Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration.
The union argued that beside not carrying organised labour along, the benefits of disengaged and other former employees of the defunct NNSL were yet to be paid by the same government that liquidated the national carrier.
Recall that the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Adegboyega Oyetola, had at the ministry’s first stakeholders’ roundtable engagement on advancing sustainable development in Nigeria’s marine and blue economy sector in Lagos on Tuesday, said the ministry planned to re-float the NNSL through a strategic public-private-partnership, PPP, arrangement.
But the president-General of MWUN, Prince Adewale Adeyanju, insisted yesterday that the fallouts of NNSL’s liquidation, especially the unpaid benefits of its former employees, must be resolved amicably before any re-floating under whatever guise could be discussed.
He said: “The union is now having a different view of the minister when he did not speak about the aged seafarers who navigated with the defunct national carrier vessels over the new NNSL proposal.
“MWUN, which its major challenges has not been resolved over the years with several ministers of transportation, as regards the settlement of the retiree aged seafarers and other issues confronting the blue economy which has not been given a clear cut definition and mode of operation, is still worrisome to the union as we speak.
“The re-floating of a new NNSL will be a mirage if the retired seafarers who worked tirelessly with deep sense of patriotism for the country are not given their due rights after 28 years they left the service of the national carrier vessels.”
”It will only amount to human injustice of the highest order. It will also be tantamount to placing the cart before the horse, if such proposition is in the pipeline without first thinking of the aged seafarers.““We, as a labour union, will not sit aloof and watch our aged seafarers continue to suffer unnecessary penury after meritorious years of service to their fatherland. It is true that some of the aged seafarers have died from various ailments, some from psychological torture and trauma; mental degradation, abject poverty and so on that weighed them down in depression.
“It would be recalled that the former Minister of Transportation, Muazu Sambo, set up a committee involving two ministries – Ministry of Transportation and Labour Ministry respectively.
”The said committee was charged with the responsibility of carrying out physical verification of aged seafarers which the union thought would have brought some sort of succour; but to no avail.
”It is, indeed, unfortunate to say here that the committee has never met. So, where do we go from here, when you want to re-float the NNSL with no consideration to the seafarers who served the defunct carrier vessels?
”This is unheard of anywhere globally. Therefore, any plan for a new NNSL is mirage in its conception, except the needful is done.’
“The blue economy that is on the lips of every Nigerian today, emerged as a global concept in 2012. Therefore, the union’s position is that as far as the new ministry is concerned, it cannot function without the inclusion of MWUN in all its ramifications.
”The union must be part of the policy process, which must be seen to conform with the rules of social inclusion and collaboration, because the blue economy must be seen to strengthen social equity order, hence, our disposition, given the aged Seafarers debacle which is yet to receive serious attention.”
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