'Lai Olurode a. to find out if the values shared by the generality of the rank and file of transport workers are compatible with democratization; b. to find out what in the organogram and structure of the transport union in question make for communication and social control; c. to establish factors which in the opinion of transport workers are capable of precipitating election conflict and violence; d. to establish what transport workers are willing to do to mitigate the degeneration of the electoral process into election fiasco; e. to find what forms of economic and political transactions exist between the road transport workers' union and agents of the state and politicians; and f. to find out what is in the nature of transport workers that make people to perceive them as being culpable in some cases of election insecurity. Now that our objectives are stated in more measurable terms, the kind of data for collection and those to talk to become clearer and better understood. We must bear in mind that this study is essentially exploratory and its findings can only be tentative. A quick search on the internet on NURTW yielded insufficient information. Other than the headquarters address, nothing helpful for what we needed was posted on their website. An online reading of newspapers gave some excerpts, mainly negative opinions and incidents. I suspected that our state offices might have had some contacts with them in the cause of election logistics and operations. This contact yielded some good results. Transport workers' union is one of the most often mentioned unions in the newspapers and a 54 Understanding a'Power Broker': The Road Transport Workers Unions in the Context of Election Security perusal through selected newspapers was of assistance in providing some clues. As is usual in social research, one link leads to other. We were able to obtain some good responses to some of our quests for knowledge of road transport workers. 3.4 Tentative Findings Both documentary search and interview methods 8 were employed in achieving our research objectives. Among people that were interviewed were officials of NURTW, some RECs, some who had knowledge of the operations of transport workers and members of the public. The interviews were rather not random but purposive. Other than these interviews, we also relied on published documents such as newspaper reports, the constitution of the association and other related publications. The union, an affiliate of the NLC, was founded in 1977 and was duly registered with the Ministry of Labour. A perusal through the constitution of NURTW shows clearly that the values espoused by the association are in tandem with the core tenets of democratization. Some major objectives of the body are 'encouragement of participation of workers in decision-making process both at the industrial sector and at the national levels' and also'organization and complete unionisation of all workers engaged in road transportation who are qualified for membership in the union' as well as'to encourage women to participate in trade union affairs'(Article 3, subsection 1 to 13 of the constitution of NURTW). 8 See Olurode,'Lai'The feasibility of election security in an unsecured global environment'. Olurode,'Lai and Jega, Attahiru(eds.) op. cit. 55