By Temitope Adebayo
The leadership of Nigeria Union Railway Workers of Nigeria (NUR) and the Association of Nigerian Railway Senior Citizens (ANRSC) are at loggerheads over the monetisation of staff quarters fund.
Similarly, the Association of Nigerian Railway Senior Citizens (ANRSC) also raised an alarm over the alleged plot by the management of the Nigerian Railway Commission(NRC) with the two in-house unions to arms twist them and sell its staff quarters to themselves at the detriment of ANRSC members.
The National public relations officer/publicity secretary, Lagos, Comrade Festus Okorie together with the Board of Trustees and the National Executive Council of the association pointed accusing fingers at the Nigerian Union of Railway Workers (NUR) and Senior Staff Association (SSA) in the conspiracy, accusing them not only of poor handling of the railway staff quarters monetisation policy but want to sell the same to themselves.
As a result, the ANRSC, which is the umbrella body of retirees of the Nigerian Railway Corporation said they passed a vote of no confidence on the leadership of the two in-house Unions of the NRC and SSA.
They accused the unions of double standard and nursing a hidden agenda with the NRC’s management to sell the staff quarters to themselves by shutting the retirees out in the ongoing discussions arriving at recommendations they made to the Minister of Transport, Mu’azu Jaji Sambo and the committee that was inaugurated in February 2023.
The ANRSC further alleged that both unions and NRC’s management had sought to mislead the minister into making decisions that were against the interests of the retirees.
“We condemn in its entirety the unions’ conspiracy with the railway management to mislead the honourable minister and the committee chairman who doubles as the chairman of the NRC Board into taking decisions that are, not only inimical to the interests and rights of Retirees in particular and the Corporation’s staff in general but also prejudicial to the extant policy of the Federal government and the judgement of National Industrial Court which gave us right to offer of first refusal,” Okorie said.
However, in his reaction, NUR national president, Comrade Innocent Ajiji that he wondered how could an unrecognised body like ANRSC place a vote of no confidence othe n a legally constituted body like NUR.
He said, as ANRSC is not a registered body, it has no moral justification to pass a vote of no confidence on the union.
In addition, he said, there was no iota of truth in the accusation of Okorie and his group, claiming that, after 10 years of their retirement, they ought to join the authentic pensioner union rather than setting up ANRSC to milk other pensioners of their money. The authentic pensioners union with the management has resolved to settle out of court all issues relating to the monetisation.
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And in his swift reaction against NUR’s double standard and stylish motive to deny ANRSC of their entitlement, Okorie, responding to this medium, said: “I’m surprised followed his line of argument. He’s been avoiding the media. But don’t you think if you agree with what he said and conclude, it’s become one-sided?
“Besides, ANRSC is a formidable body of NRC retirees registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission and the statement thereat speaks volumes
“For the avoidance of doubt, the registration number of ANRSC is RC No 124880 2018. You can verify at the corporate affairs Commission. By the way, does an entity need to be registered before it can cry out against perceived injustice news?” he pointed out.
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