Mkpoikana Udoma
29 June 2016, Sweetcrude, Port Harcourt – The Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG, has called on the Federal Government to ensure its change agenda reflects on roads across the country.
The oil workers’ union made the call in Port Harcourt during a training organised by its national body for tanker drivers in the Eastern zone, tagged, ‘Safe Driving, Accident Effects and Prevention’.
Speaking to newsmen at the programme, the National President of NUPENG, Igwe Achese, attributed the repeated cases of tanker accidents to the deplorable nature of roads in the country.
The union leader urged governments at all levels to take fixing of roads as a priority, emphasising that the Federal Government’s change agenda should reflects on roads.
According to him, if roads are fixed, the number of tanker accidents recorded would reduce drastically.
Achese, however, implored tanker drivers to change their attitudes on the usage of the roads.
He said: “The nature of our roads is a real contributory factor to tanker accidents which we are experiencing. It is unfortunate that we are expecting change to have effect on our roads but that has not been realised and this over one year.
“But, we are still confident that change will come, but it should have impact on the road infrastructure. We are also happy that the budget has been approved; its implementation is what we are watching and how it is going to have impact on the roads which we use daily.
“As tanker drivers, road usage is key issue everyday because our roads are bad but in this training programme we also see where we are coming from and what we need to do that, as drivers, when we observe that the roads are bad; do we need to ply that road or do we need to apply caution in managing the road?”
Similarly, the National Chairman of Petroleum Tankers Drivers, Salimon Oladiti, disclosed that the training was targeted at changing the attitude of tanker drivers on the road.
