- Safiu Kehinde
Violence has on Monday erupted as loyalists of the National Union of Road Transport Workers’ (NURTW) chieftain, Tajudeen Baruwa, invaded the union’s Abuja headquarters.
This is coming under the heels of a court ruling which sacked the NURTW National President, MC Oluomo, from the role.
In the wake of the ruling, Baruwa loyalists stormed the headquarters in what was considered a take over buy the NURTW chieftain.
The chaotic moment captured in series of videos shared on X showed the suspected hoodlums carting away valuables including Air Conditioner, Laptops, and Television Sets amongst others at the NURTW headquarters.
Another clip showed some of the Baruwa loyalists destroying Oluomo’s pictures found within the complex.
Addressing newsmen amid the chaos, the NURTW chieftain recounted his litigation case with Oluomo which he repeatedly won.
He however accused the former Lagos NURTW Chairman of failure to obey court’s order and step down from the position.
“We are coming here to resume to the office. For almost two years, we have been going to the court. We won them in lower court.
“They took us to Appeal Court, we won the again. After almost a year, they failed to respect the law. They claimed they are above the law which I know that there is nobody above the law.
“Then we went back again to another court to interpret the judgement for us. How can we get judgement, and people will be adamant to vacate office?
“And we don’t want to take laws by our hand because we know is goes on in trade union.” He said.
On the invasion of the NURTW’s headquarters, Baruwa held that he had only come to resume duty following the latest court’s ruling.
He however met strong resistance from some loyalists of Olumo.
This led to a clash between the two factions which has, according to Baruwa, left three people injured with one the victims having his ears chopped off.
“You can see that we don’t hold anything like cutlass, gun. We don’t need it because we are a typical trade unionist.
“They wounded three people. Then we saw an Aye (cult member) running with gun and machete. The Aye chopped off the ear of one of the injured people.
“It is unfortunate that we have taken that man to hospital.” Baruwa said.