MWUN calls for urgent release of 17 members arrested by NDLEA

Segun Oladipupo

Leadership of the Maritime Workers’ Union of Nigeria (MWUN) has called for urgent release of 17 members of the union being detained by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA)

In a statement on Monday, the union stated that the 17 members who were arrested onboard different vessels at berth, are held without being charged to court.

The statement signed by the President General of the union, Comrade Adewale Adeyanju, disclosed that 13 dockworkers were arrested on the 13th of October by the NDLEA while on duty aboard MV Cha Yaree Naree.

He added that the vessel berthed at Greenview Development Nigeria Limited terminal where narcotics were said to have be found.

He maintained that there was no information that the drugs were found on the workers, fuming that the presumed innocent workers were kept in incarceration without due process

Adeyanju also claimed that on 7th of November, NDLEA operatives again arrested another four dockworkers who were on duty onboard MV Karteria for a bag said to be found on the vessel.

The contents of the bag were not disclosed, nor was it found on any of the arrested workers.

“However, the workers remain in detention without being charged to court, and their phones have been seized” he stated.

According to Adeyanju, the Union is worried that its members seem to be targeted for arrests, as the ship Agent and Consignee who were in possession of the ship’s manifest were not interrogated, let alone arrested.

“The Maritime Workers Union is not in support of peddling hard drugs, and as such frowns at the continued harassment, intimidation, arrest and detention of its members who have been kept off the grid for weeks without being released or charged to court”

“The Union is therefore calling on the NDLEA to immediately release the detained workers, or barring that, charge them to court accordingly” Adeyanju declared.