DSS stops NURTW elections

Men of the Department of Security Services stormed Lafia, Nasarawa State, on Wednesday night to stop men of the National Union of Road Transport Workers( NURTW) from holding its delegate conference, describing it as illegal.

The police had last week in Abuja arrested the president of the union, Alhaj Tajudeen Ibikunle Baruwa, for allegedly importing thugs and armed men into the Federal Capital Territory.

The union’s National Secretariat was equally sealed off by security police to prevent a breakdown of law and order. They were barred from using the Secretariat for the election.

In an attempt to take it away from the attention of the security agencies, the union members on Wednesday converged in Lafia, Nasarawa State, to conduct the election, but security agencies disrupted the proceedings and everybody including the leaders of the union, ran to avoid being apprehended.

A faction of the union had secured a court order which directed the union to maintain the status quo ante bellum until the applications were heard and determined.

It will be recalled that leaders of the union in Southwest had been at the forefront of agitation against the second-term ambitions of the incumbent president, Alhaji Baruwa, hence a series of court charges pressed to determine his eligibility to stand for election.