A Union Between Order and Violence

B By: Folorunso, Fatai Adisa

It has always been a restless union, a gathering of men bound not just by trade but by tension. Long before now, it had earned a reputation that travelled faster than its buses. Where it went, stories followed of unrest, of muscle, of a certain lawlessness that hovered like heat over asphalt.

My understanding of that world was never abstract. It was personal. Sometime in 2007, tragedy walked into a house I knew too well. It was the home of my childhood friend, a place where I had spent nights, shared meals, and felt a kind of borrowed belonging. Then one night, darkness arrived without warning. Armed men stormed the private storey building. They came looking for money, but they left with something far more permanent. They murdered my friend’s mother.

It was a cold, senseless act that tore through the fabric of that family and left a silence words could not mend. She was, by every measure, a good woman. Deeply religious, generous to a fault, and always willing to extend warmth to others. Her husband, an upright man and then a branch chairman of the National Union of Road Transport Workers, was preparing for Hajj. Just days away from a spiritual journey, he was forced instead into mourning.

Grief had barely settled when something even more unsettling happened. The following day, the state chairman of the union came to commiserate. But sympathy was not the only thing he brought. In a moment that still stings in memory, he asked the grieving man to remit funds in his custody. There was no pause, no restraint, no regard for the rawness of loss. It was as if tragedy itself was not reason enough to suspend demands.

What happened next remains one of the most jarring displays of integrity I have ever witnessed. The man, still wrapped in grief, walked to the trunk of his car and handed over the money, every kobo untouched. Those present were stunned. In the face of insensitivity, he chose accountability. In the middle of chaos, he chose order. That moment stayed with me because it revealed two faces of the same institution, one callous and mechanical in its demands, the other human, disciplined, and quietly honourable.

For a while, it seemed the union had softened. Time appeared to sand down its rough edges. The stories grew quieter, the violence less frequent, or perhaps less visible. But recent events suggest that the old impulses have not disappeared. They have only been waiting.

This morning, viral videos surfaced showing factions loyal to Baruwa storming the national headquarters, armed with cudgels and long blades, in a bid to dislodge the current president, Musiliu Akinsanya, popularly known as MC Oluomo, following a court judgment reportedly in Baruwa’s favour. What happened was not a transition but an invasion. Doors were broken, voices rose into a chaotic chorus, and the air thickened with the familiar scent of disorder. It was a return to type, showing that beneath whatever calm we thought existed, the old instincts still breathe.

One is forced to ask whether things must always unravel this way. Power, even at its most local level, does not have to be seized with sticks and blades. There are processes, there are institutions, and there is, at least in theory, a state that should ensure that court decisions are implemented with order and restraint. Yet too often, we default to spectacle, to force, to a kind of performative chaos that solves nothing and threatens everything.

The danger lies not just in what has happened, but in what may follow. Factions do not exist in isolation. They have loyalties, and loyalties, when provoked, respond. If opposing sides collide, what begins as a leadership tussle could quickly spiral into something far more dangerous. This is not an ordinary internal dispute. It is a potential flashpoint with wider implications for public safety.

There is also a larger question that lingers. What does it say about us that even in matters that demand structure, we lean instinctively towards disorder? That even with legal backing, enforcement still wears the face of violence. Perhaps the answer lies in a culture that too often tolerates “anyhowness” until it becomes the norm, where systems exist but are routinely bypassed, and where authority is asserted not through legitimacy but through force.

I think back to that man in 2007, grieving yet composed, pressured yet principled. He stood at a crossroads between chaos and order and chose the latter, not because it was easy, but because it was right. That choice is still available to us, as individuals, as institutions, and as a nation. What remains uncertain is whether we are willing to make it.

For now, one can only hope that Abuja does not descend into further chaos, that restraint prevails over retaliation, and that the activities of the union, powerful as they are, become properly regulated in a way that does not compound the already fragile security situation of the country. Hope, in times like this, may feel fragile, but it remains necessary.