The Benin Division of the National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN) has barred Edo Tipper Drivers Association from collecting dues from tipper owners and rivers because it was not a union and lacks the powers to operate like one.
The judgment delivered by Justice Abiola Adewemimo was a sequel to a suit marked NICN/BEN/36/2018 initiated by the tipper drivers association under the name, The Incorporated Trustees of Edo Tippers Association of Nigeria against the Edo state government, Union of Tipper and Quarry Employers of Nigeria and others to the challenge Edo State Local Governments Uniform and Harmonised Levies, Rates, Fees and Charges law 2017 which gives the mandate to the state government to collect all the charges and remit the unions’ share to them.
Justice Adewemimo ruled that the claimant which is the Tipper Drivers Association “lacks capacity to institute the present suit against the 1st – 3rd defendants as predicated on the enacted Edo State Local Governments Union and Harmonized Levies, Rates Fees and Charges Law, 2017.
“Consequently, the question set down for determination and the reliefs sought by the claimant in this case, cannot be sustained with respect to the subject matter of this suit, as a result of which the suit fails for lack of merit and is hereby dismissed.”
Addressing journalists in Benin City on Monday, chairman of the Union of Tipper and Quarry Employers of Nigeria, Comrade Gabriel Osaigbovo called on the state government to ensure that the court ruling is implemented to enable them operate in the state peacefully without hindrance.
He said “like the court ruled, Edo Tipper Drivers Association is not a registered trade union and it cannot carry out the duties of the Union as they are presently doing. They should desist from the acts that are contrary to what they are registered to do as a body.
It is only the Union of Tipper and Quarry Employers of Nigeria that have such power to collect levies or dues from its members or workers and this the harmonized state law of 2017 is already doing through the internal revenue service of the state”.
