••As NUPENG threatens strike, gives FG 7-day ultimatum

•••As NUPENG threatens strike, gives FG 7-day ultimatum

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Written by Adunola Fasuyi, Lagos Wednesday, 10 November 2010

Barely a few hours to the warning strike, the Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD) branch of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) has given the Federal Government a seven-day ultimatum to find and prosecute the army officer that killed its member while on duty or it will stop lifting oil across the country and ground economic activities.
The union, through a save-our-soul message, said it had become imperative to register a strong protest concerning men of the Nigerian Army that had allegedly made it habit to indulge in the unprovoked harassment and killing of its members performing their legitimate national assignment of supplying fuel across the country.
National chairman of PTD, Comrade Timothy Ogbu, who addressed the media on the issue in Lagos, on Tuesday, said that the ultimatum became necessary as various efforts by his union to seek the intervention of the military high command on the incident proved fruitless, as the military officials had made themselves unavailable.
The labour leader explained that at about 8.30 p.m. on November 6, 2010, a uniformed soldier manning a roadblock between Bauchi and Plateau states shot and killed Comrade Mohammed Saidu, a tanker driver. He said further that the late Saidu drove an Iveco truck loaded with fuel from the Lagos depot, going to Plateau State, but unfortunately, met his death at the roadblock when the army officer allegedly gunned down the defenceless driver.