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’Femi Asu
The Petroleum Tanker Drivers branch of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers has commenced a training programme for its members across the country in a bid to reduce the occurrence of road accidents.
The union said about 3,000 tanker drivers would be trained in the first phase, starting from Lagos, where 900 would participate in the programme.
The National Chairman, Petroleum Tanker Drivers Branch, NUPENG, Mr. Salimon Oladiti, who spoke at the programme in Lagos on Wednesday, said when they took over the mantle of leadership of the branch, training of their members was a very critical aspect of their goals.
“We believe that we need to train and re-train our members across the country. If we don’t train them, they may misbehave and cause havoc along our highway.”
He said the PTD had recently taken the national campaign on safety to 12 locations across the country.
Oladiti said prior to that exercise, there were series of ghastly road accidents involving petroleum tankers, resulting in fire incidents and massive loss of lives and property.
“I am so pleased today and can boldly say that the efforts of last year have not been in vain. We have recorded almost no major accidents of such since then. It shows our campaign on safety on wheels is yielding the desired results.
“We are happy that we are not only oiling the economic wheel of this nation, we are doing it in such a way that we put the safety of lives and property of Nigerians above personal gains and we spare no cost to achieve this important goal.”
The Chairman, Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, Lagos Zone, Alhaji Tokunbo Korodo, said, “I believe the training will create a very big impact on the attitude of members on the highway. Our target is to reduce, if not totally eradicate, frequent tanker accidents on the highway because if a tanker gets involved in an accident, it is going to cause a lot of damage to people and properties. We are training them because they are the ones that have interface with the vehicles and other road users.
“We are starting with 100 drivers. In Lagos, we are training about 900 people. And after that, we will move to other zones. We are targeting nothing less than 3,000 tanker drivers nationwide for a start.”
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