The Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN) on Sunday, kicked against moves by port concessionaire, AP. Moller Terminal (APMT) , Apapa to outsource internal maritime security to a South African firm, saying the development would allegedly lead to compromised inflow of dangerous cargo to the nation.
The union has also demanded for an immediate reversal of the unilateral action by the concessionaire , stressing the need for status quo in order to avoid any crisis in the foremost container terminal.
In a statement by the President General, MWUN , Comrade Adeyanju Adewale, a South African security service provider , simply identified as Messrs G4S and Security management has been engaged by the port concessionaire to take over security responsibilities at the terminal.
A copy of statement titled ” INFILTRATION OF INTERNAL MARITIME SECURITY FUNCTIONS WITH FOREIGN PERSONNEL: LOOMING CRISIS IN THE AP MOELLER TERMINAL AND THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY, ‘was made available to DAILYFOCUS NIGERIA .
Adeyanju reiterated that the concessionaire failed to engage the union in furtherance to make input on the security arrangements ; describing it as anti labour practise port operations.
He affirmed that ” Security is also very paramount in this trying period of seeming growing incidences of breaches in security all over our nation and so any act capable of further contributing to its breakdown should be met with serious attention.
He noted further that : “Even more outrageous is the fact that APM Terminals has almost concluded arrangement to carry out same anti – labour practise in other departments of their organization and deprive thousands of Nigerian workers of a means of livelihood.
While highlighting the important role of the industry , the union’s boss maintained that “It has been correctly said that the maritime sector is the gate way to the Nigeria economy and through this means it caters to an appreciable percentage of export and import of materials, products, foods, medicals, pharmaceuticals, constructions materials etc. It is therefore in our nation’s economic interest that stability in this sector be maintained at all times and at all levels.
“In order therefore to forestall a further breach of security situation in our ports we – MARITIME WORKERS UNION OF NIGERIA wish to bring to the attention of the general public the teething activities which aims to undermine the security of our nation’s maritime security and by this our nation’s.
“This is why we have deemed it necessary to inform our public of the activity of Messrs. APM Terminals, Nigeria, whom we are reliably informed have through a memo to our members, ceded and out sourced the security functions of the organization to an external – South African, security service provider – Messrs G4S and Security management by CRS effective Thursday March 18th, 2021 without recourse to the Union and consideration to our members and the nation’s security.
“We are more alarmed because what that means is that the security functions of APM Terminals which one of the biggest receiver of containerized cargo in our nation’s seaport has been out sourced to foreign nationals without input from local and internal security systems thus opening up our ports to all sorts of inflow of dangerous cargo which are not recorded.
Continuing he noted that”Even more outrageous is the fact that APM Terminals has almost concluded arrangement to carry out same anti – labour practise in other departments of their organization and deprive thousands of Nigerian workers of a means of livelihood. This is in clear negation of the federal government’s goal to create employment.
“We wish to inform the general public that APM Terminals is in this action unilateral
and in clear violation of clause 3 of an existing Agreement reached between the Union and their management which states that “In the event of a further need for outsourcing in the operations, the MWUN and management of APMT will discuss and reach an agreement”.
“Suffice it to say that APM Terminals unilateral action has caused restiveness amongst the rank and file of our members, as we have neither discussed nor reached any agreement on outsourcing of security functions of any organization, Thus, we view this unilateral action as an anti – labour practise and a disrespect for the Nigerian people and needs”.
