RTEAN warns members against illegal directives

The national leadership of the Road Transport Employee Association of Nigeria has warned members of the Chapels and Zones operating in Lagos not to comply with the illegal directive of the care-taker committee.

This was in a statement jointly signed by the Deputy National President Admin, RTEAN, Abubakar Bishara, and National General Secretary, Yusuf Adeniyi.

According to the union, the committee does not have powers to issue the said directive especially when the nation’s industrial court had ordered the maintenance of the status quo ante bellum.

The PUNCH had reported that the Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, had reportedly sealed the state office, suspended the entire Lagos State branch of the association, and appointed a 35-member caretaker committee to run the affairs of the branch shortly after the isolated incidents in two chapels.

However, RTEAN being aggrieved, instituted a suit with No:NICN/LA/381/2022 before the National Industrial Court, Lagos, challenging the illegal or unlawful action of the Lagos State Government in dissolving the elected executive committee of RTEAN and purportedly appointing a care-taker committee to run its affairs. This was despite the fact that a State Government does not have the power to interfere in the affairs of a trade union registered under the Trade Unions Act, a Federal Law.

The union said the Lagos State Government and the members of the care-taker committee were defendants in the suit, adding that the court processes were served on all the defendants in the suit, and the Lagos State Government had even filed its counter-affidavit and written address in a purported defence of its action.