Musiliu Akinsanya, better known by his stage as MC Oluomo, a transport labour activist based in Lagos, has been named acting head of Zone 2 of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW).

This comes at the same time that the union has pleaded with the governors of Osun, Ondo, and Oyo to allow the NURTW to resume its activities in their states so that they can nominate candidates for the position of national president for the southwest zone.

The union appointed Akinsanya as acting chairman of the zone till the time of the election later this month during the Zonal Conference held on Thursday at Zone 2 Council Secretariat Plot 12/13 Dagbolu Layout Ikirun Road, Osogbo, Osun State.

Nasiru Komolafe, the event’s presiding officer and a former national treasurer, said during his remarks that just two of the six states that were meant to be in Zone 2 were actually operating. The four more states are not functional.

“However, today, during the meeting, we learned that Ogun has given the union the go-ahead to resume operations. It has revoked the state’s prohibition on the NURTW’s operations. We currently have three States.

We cannot hold elections with only two States out of six due to the NURTW constitution. There should be four States at the very least. Therefore, since the National Delegate Conference would be held on October 25, we decided to move the zonal Congress to October 19, 2023.

I’m utilising this platform to ask the remaining state governments—Ondo, Osun, and Oyo States—to kindly permit NURTW to operate in their jurisdictions. Having been allocated to the Southwest, the National President of the Union may be taken over by another zone if we fail to host a zonal congress.

“The congress agreed that Musiliu Akinsanya, affectionately known as MC Oluomo, should take up the mantle of leadership of the zone in Acting capacity until the time we would conduct elections,” he continued. “Zonal Chairman was not at the meeting, but the deputy zonal chairman came.