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The Tricycle Owners Association of Nigeria (TOAN) has condemned the registration of tricycle owners and operators under the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) and Road Transport Employers Association Nigeria (RTEAN), calling it unlawful.
The xcting chairman of the Lagos State branch of the association, Comrade Tunji Oyeniyi, in a statement, said, the new association called Tricycle Sector of NURTW, had since been prohibited from operating as a union by virtue of section 2 and 45 of the Trade Union Act.
Oyeniyi insisted that TOAN was the only “statutory or lawfully registered and officially recognised body to organise tricycle owners and operators as a trade union.”
He noted that both the Tricycle Owners and Operators Association of Nigeria and the break-away faction of TOAN cannot be called a trade union as all other existing associations of tricycle owners and operators were registered under Part C of the Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA) by virtue of section 603 (1).
Explaining further, the acting chairman said, in a judgement delivered at the National Industrial Court of Nigeria, suit NICN/LA/407/2013, delivered by Justice B.B. Kanyip on May 10, 2017, he declared that it is the registrar of trade unions that has the power to register a trade union and by extension to direct or recognise the affiliation of a body to a trade union, subject to the overriding review powers of the court.
“Under what law did Lagos State government direct that the applicant be affiliated to the NURTW?” he queried.
In the same vein, president of the Centre for Change, Dr. Joe Okei-Odumakin, has said that the security agencies, particularly the police, should serve as peace-makers in the feud between the unions, and desist from harassing the members and leadership of TOAN.
In her solidarity message, she said that it was against morality and every known convention, “to force a group of people to adopt a particular identity against their will, as members of TOAN are being made to do.”
