MWUN expresses concern  over APMT outsourcing terminal security to foreigners

The union in a statement on Sunday signed by the President General, Comrade Abdullah red Adewale Adeyanju, said that AP Moller Terminal (APMT) had infiltrated the Nigerian maritime security with foreign personnel.

Describing the development as incident capable of further contributing to breakdown of security in the country, Adeyanju stated that it should be met with serious attention.

The union has demanded for immediate reversal of the unilateral action and maintain the status quo in order to avoid any crisis in the terminal.

Parts of the statement read, “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.

“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.

“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.

The union further accused the concessionaires of anti-labour practice, saying the action that is likely to send some workers to the labour market.

“Even more outrageous is the fact that APM Terminals has almost concluded arrangement to carry out same anti–labour practice 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.

“Consequent upon the foregoing, the Union has demanded for an immediate reversal of this unilateral action and maintain the status quo in order to avoid any crisis in your terminal,” it concluded