EVEN as the intransigent Musiliu Akinsanya, a former chairman of the Lagos State Parks and Management Committee, has continued to disregard the law in acting as national president of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), a trade union of transport workers in the country, a call has gone to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to direct his Attorney General of the Federation and minister of justice Lateef Fagbemi (SAN) to instruct the Inspector-General of Police Mr Kayode Egbetokun to unseat the illegal occupier of the National Chairman of motor park workers in the country. HURIWA called the open flouting of the judgments of both the National Industrial Court and the Court of Appeal by Mr. Musiliu Akinsanya aided by the police as a grave affront to the principles of rule of law in Nigeria.
Making the call is the civil Rights advocacy group HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) which decried the shameful fact that the current administration willfully permits the disobedience of lawfully obtained Court orders if the political loyalists of the president is involved but is quick to enforce judgments affecting those considered as political rivals of the government in power. “We are appalled and shocked that the government conveniently looks the other way when judgments are not favourable to the political allies of the president such as the case of the Osun state local government councils which are currently occupied by rebellious members of the President’s political party the All Progressives Congress.
HURIWA condemned the silence of the president in this particular matter in which his political foot-soldiier lost the leadership of the National Union of Road Transport Workers in the country at the Court of Appeal but has used the force of arms provided by the police under the command and control of the President to occupy the office of the leader of NURTW in Nigeria.
In November 2024, a Court of Appeal in Abuja affirmed an earlier National Industrial Court of Nigeria judgment pronouncing Tajudeen Ibikunle Baruwa as president of the union.
Baruwa had served for four years and he was to be serving his second term, having been reelected in August 2023, three months to the termination of his first tenure as enunciated by the union’s constitution.
But some members of the union, led by Najeem Usman Yasin, a former president of the same union and current chairman of its Board of Trustees (BoT), disputed Baruwa’s re-election, causing the police in the Federal Capital Territory to arrest and detain him many times.
Yasin unilaterally dissolved the National Administrative Council led by Baruwa and then facilitated the setting up of a National Caretaker Committee to administer the union. At this point, Baruwa and 13 others, including the NURTW as a juristic personality, headed to the National Industrial Court.
INDUSTRIAL COURT’S CONCLUSION
Baruwa and others, referred to in the case as claimants, filed their case, marked NICN/ABJ/263/2023, on September 28, 2023, against Yasin and six others referred to as defendants.
After arguments by both parties, the court delivered a judgment in favour of the claimants on March 11, 2024, according to a certified copy of the judgment obtained. Incidentally, the court of Appeal, Abuja Division affirmed the judgment of the National Industrial Court.
HURIWA is therefore asking the President to adhere strictly to the rule of law by compelling his AGF and the IGP to do the needful and eject the illegal occupier of the office at the National headquarters of the motor park workers union in Abuja.
Besides, HURIWA is also challenging the president to order the expulsion of the illegal occupiers of the local council offices in Osun state who are actively aided by armed police to perpetuate their illegal occupation of the LGAS. Mon, Nov 3, 2025
