In the wake of several reports of drugs smuggling and other criminal activities, the President General of the Maritime Wokers Union of Nigeria (MWUN), Comrade Adewale Adeyanju, says he is seeking collaboration with the Nigerian Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) to flush out perpetrators.
Adeyanju says MWUN will not in any way support illegal activities among its members.
Point News247 reports that
Comrade Adeyanju made this remark during a chat with some members of the press in his office early this week.
The MWUN President, who fielded questions from Pressmen, said he commended the operatives of the NDLEA for it’s promptness in arresting suspects involved in smuggling cocaine and heroin found aboard a vessel in Apapa recently.
He however blamed the incessant importation of hard drugs into the country through the ports on the removal of onboard security men from the port by the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), say they would have identified and intercepted such illicit drugs imported into the country.
In response to a question on the port security situation, he said: “As a result of what is going onboard-gang way men. If you look at all the faces now, we cannot confirm who are the onboard-gang way men. If we have onboard-gangway, most of these things would be identified by the security men onboard the vessels, but as a result of the Nigerian Ports Authority flushing out tally clerk and onboard security men, we have been telling the whole world that onboard-gangway men are the international body recognised all over the world in line with the ILO on maritime”.
“They should bring back the onboard security men who will identify visitors onboard the vessels. As it is know we don’t know the people managing security onboard the vessels, they are illegal”.
“The NIMASA, NPA and terminal operators should wake up and make sure that what belongs to the onboard-gang way men should be equally be given and bring them back”.
“If all there are security men onboard the vessels, there would not be transportation of hard drugs and narcotics at the ports.”
In reaction to the arrests carried out by the NDLEA, Comrade Adeyanju said: “The MWUN is not going to support anything that has to do with illegalities. We commend the efforts of the NDLEA for promptness in their actions. For some time now the leadership of the NDLEA has taken responsibility as the head of that agency.
He however added that: “But while you are about doing that, you need to have human face in doing your jobs, that ordinarily there is no how you will keep somebody in custody for two to three months and that is our reaction to the case because you can’t hold who are not responsible for the offence, while you ignore the culprit and not hold them under incarceration.”
“While we reacted against their detentions, we made it clear to the while world the union is not going to support the activities of some of our members getting themselves involved in illegalities. Whosoever that is caught is on his own. The NDLEA should realise that we are representing those who believe we need to protect their interest and welfare. While we are protecting their interest and welfare, they should equally look at where they are going to put the system, that is the union and that of the Government.”
He also added that there was a need for the Union to collaborate with the NDLEA to flush out criminal elements.
In his words: “We are not saying they shouldn’t do their jobs, we commended and support them, but there is need for us to partner with them so that this country belongs to all of us and we can equally support the NDLEA to flush out those bad eggs, cartel to cabal that want to turn the Nigerian Ports to their base of importing and exporting hard drugs. We have not experienced this kind of thing in the past, it is a surprise to us that it is becoming the order of the day where vessels coming into the ports are caught with cocaine and other narcotic substances. The Union is not in support, but the NDLEA should investigate this matter properly and charge whoever is involved according to the law of the land, not punishing the innocent dockworkers.”
When asked for a solution to the apparent lacuna and other challenges in the ports Adeyanju urged the NDLEA to do more in terms of sensitization and awareness among all stakeholders.
He said: “I think the NDLEA coming out in this direction has not introduced awareness and sensitisation to all the stakeholders. The structure will fall in two or four categories, where we have NPA, shipping branch, seafarers and the dockworkers whose name are being prominent in these illegalities. To me, we want the NDLEA to come out and work with all the stakeholders . If they want to succeed properly, there should be an awareness coming from from them to all these structures. Even if you have a structure, without an awareness how do you move? There won’t be any progress. They are just doing this job on the face of taking the matter to the court and the court is giving them court orders to detain the vessels and suspects until they are being proven guilty, but there should be an awareness coming from NDLEA, MWUN, NPA, NIMASA and all the stakeholders that made these things to be structured.”
“So if all those things have not being out in place, there is no now they are going to succeed,there will be suspect upon suspect among ourselves. But awareness and sensitisation on this matter is very important.
I have meeting with the dockworkers that what is about to come, they should be very careful and we want to go terminal by terminal to sensitise them that may vessel coming into Nigeria that has to do with bulk cargo, the moment they identify anything that has to do with an object that is not part of what they are discharging or loading, they should leave the vessel and raise an alarm for any cargo that is not part of their job, they should abandon the vessel.”
“There is what we call Super cargo in those days. This identifies all the cargoes meant for Nigeria, those meant for Togo and other countries, but the way it is now, we don’t have super cargoes in all the stevedoring activities and terminal operations.”
“Nigeria should reintroduce super cargo, if the vessel is not meant for this country it would be identified and the operations manager onboard that vessel. It is no longer working, just like the onboard security men that the NPA phased out and they don’t want them anymore.”
