The Petroleum Tanker Drivers Branch of National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (PTD-NUPENG) has threatened to embark on a nationwide strike.
The tanker drivers said they are embarking on the industrial action over what they alleged to be illegal activities and high-handedness of security agents, particularly the Military Task Force operating in the Port Harcourt zone of the union.
National chairman of the PTD-NUPENG, Comrade Lucky Osesua, alleged that soldiers attached to the Military Task Force operating in Port Harcourt burnt two of their trucks conveying black oil (HPFO) on Tuesday night.
Addressing journalists in Abuja yesterday, Osesua said the truck drivers were falsely accused of transporting crude oil.
He stated that the trucks which lifted the black oil at a modular refinery, Walter Smith Refinery and Petrochemical, Ibigwe, in Imo State, on Monday and Tuesday, were intercepted between Ahoada and Elele in Rivers State.
Giving the number plates of the trucks as EFR 770 XA and AFZ 351 ZY, the PTD- NUPENG national chairman said the petrol tankers were conveying 40,000 litres each of the black oil to Bob & Sea Depot Koko Delta State.
Osesua who presented the documents to journalists said, “The drivers presented WayBills, NUPENG receipts, and quality control documents. But the military men still insisted that they carried crude oil.! They drove the the two trucks away and burnt them between Ahoada and Elele in Rivers State on Tuesday night.
“Without investigation, without reaching out to the refinery where the drivers mentioned that they lifted the black oil, the soldiers burnt the trucks in less than five hours.”
