The task force committee of Nigeria Association Of Road Transport Owners (NARTO) and its members, have registered their grievances with Lagos State government for the alleged extortion of their members by government agency.
In a protest at the Government House at Alausa, Ikeja on Wednesday, June 30, 2021, the Chairman, Lagos State Task force, NARTO, Comrade Hassan Adekoya, alongside members of his association expressed their displeasure to journalists at the protest ground, saying that the spate of illegal extortion of their members had become alarming.
Adekoya, in a press interview, said that things were no longer going well for them and the owners of the trucks, adding that they were tired of paying law enforcement officers outrageous bills in carrying out their activities.
The protesters called on Lagos State government to review the unfriendly policies by the handlers of the trucking activities in Apapa and Tincan axis.
They said: “We are here to draw the attention of President Muhammadu Buhari and the governor of Lagos State, Mr Babajide Sanwoolu, to the situation at Apapa.
“The ways and manners of operation around Apapa axis are no longer going well for us and truck owners,. We have several enforcement teams that extort our members; they hijack our trucks unlawfully.
“They slam on us outrageous bills, ranging from N200,000 to N300,000. It takes us three months for our export trucks to access the port. In all of these, we are tired.
“We are tired of NPA and their policies. All their policies are not going too well for the industry. We need a review over the terminals, terminal owners, NPA, ETO &TTP review. We are tired.”
He stated further: “Mr Governor has done his best; the enforcement team is nothing to write home about. They are not serving the state, they are not serving the nation. By now, extortion has been legalised in Apapa daily. Extortion takes place in almost all the checkpoints. We are supposed to go in with ETO/TTP app for N10,000. At the moment, it has been increased to N20,000 and N30,000.
“These are not just mere allegations, all our affected members have proofs. Some teams called the ‘abandoned team’ come over during the night and hijack our trucks. They take them over, charge us high. We need to know who is behind the looting spree. We need to know what their duties are, we need to review all of the policies.”
Comrade Adekoya said that the fundamental causes of inflation in the country could be attributed to these alleged immoralities by NPA, law enforcement agents and APMT who were in charge of the terminals.
“The N200,000 and N300,000 we paid are always in cash, which are not even remitted to government’s purse. That is why you have to buy everything high on the street because of the ripple effects of the immoral acts,” he further remarked.
One of the protesters, a truck owner who also drives, simply called Collins, said that the ETO online queuing system software had been perfectly good, with the workers of the softwares also good. He stressed that since they were re under NPA who designed the software back end, they were re not working optimally.
“NPA has decided to frustrate the activities of transporters, exporters, importers and everybody operating within the port of the federation. The port in Apapa, the port in Tincan axis; they have decided to frustrate us and they have achieved that technically.
“They brought a software known as ETO (Queuing system software). The software is perfectly good and the workers of the software are very very good. They are doing their best. But since they are under NPA, they are not operating optimally. They take instructions from NPA and NPA has been frustrating this business for a very long time.
“NPA woke up one morning and decided to shut down the portal for exporting. They told us plainly that no export truck would enter the port. They did it two times. First time for two weeks and the second time was for three weeks. They told us we are not going to export our commodities in this country.
“The terminal operators are not also helping matters. They are killing the businesses. APMT in charge of the terminals can wake up one morning and tell us they can’t accept export containers in this country. You see so many drivers are being frustrated in the line. You know the worst part, when you are frustrated in the line, you can’t even go anywhere.
“You see a team called abandoned team, they come to tow our truck and call it abandoned truck, having frustrated the drivers on the queue. They slam on us fines amounting in N300,000 to N400,000 after frustrating us deliberately,” Collins lamented.
“If you ask them who is in charge of this abandoned narrative, nobody will give you a direct answer. Ask any driver of a container truck about their experience, just go there and make your own findings, everybody is frustrated in Apapa.
“The government should set up a wider stakeholders’ forum that would include the transporters, importers, exporters, the custom license agents, and the terminal operators. We have to sit on a round table and talk this out,” he opined.
Chairman, Apapa unit of NARTO, Comrade Wale Oladehinde, also added his voice and said the reason for the protest was to let the government know what they had been passing through for several months within Apapa and Tinker axis.
“If ETO’s app refuses to grant truck access to the port, thereby occupying some spaces because it didn’t move, this committee would say the truck was abandoned, the team will then slam us with an outrageous fine.
“We want Lagos state government to come to our aid to put a stop to all these illegal extortion of our members, to stop all these illegal towing of our trucks in the name of ‘abandoned.’ We want the government to come sanitize Apapa and Tinkan axis.
“We appreciate the effort of Lagos state governor in making Apapa axis free from traffic gridlock, some people sent by the government are sabotaging government’s strides because of their own selfishness, because of what they want to gain,”Oladehinde said m.
Vice chairman, Lagos State NARTO chapter, Mr Ibrahim Lawal, alluded to the alleged illegitimate extortion of truckers in an interview with the press. He said Governor who deployed law enforcement officers to Tincan and Apapa axis is not aware of their atrocities hence the reason for staging this protest to keep the government informed about these atrocities so they can nip it in the bud through stakeholders dialogue.
The Director in charge of complains and protests in the Office of the Civic Engagement, Mr Obey Kolawole, received the hard copy of the agitations of NARTO on behalf of the state governor and said NARTO’s previous letters addressed to the state government would be reviewed and revisited.
