Extortion: Truckers demand suspension of ticketing, toll collection by unions on Mile 2-TinCan road

Truckers under the aegis of Maritime Truckers Elders forum have cried out over the activities of hoodlums operating in connivance with members of the Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria (RTEAN) and National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) collecting tolls from trucks along the Mile 2/Tincan road axis.

The truckers have therefore called on the Lagos State government to suspend all forms of ticketing and toll collection from trucks on the roads by unions within the state metropolis in order to forestall outbreak of inter union confrontation in the future.

The group spoke at an emergency meeting in Lagos on Wednesday against the backdrop of the recent inter union fracas which led to loss of lives and destruction of property along Mile 2/Tincan road axis.

While condemning the violent conflict, the truckers body blamed multiple check points created by security agencies controlling traffic along the route for the infiltration of hoodlums into truckers’ business extorting their members.

According to the group, there are over eight checkpoints between Mile 2 and Coconut, where ‘camp boys’ were being used by security agencies to extort them.

The group in a communique signed by Chief Remi Ogungbemi, Leye Thompson and Alh Kayode Odunnowo respectively demanded that all unions should leave the road and sell tickets to their members in their respective garages/park as selling union tickets on the roads causes obstruction to free flow of traffic, encourages victimization of drivers, damaging of trucks and attracts hoodlums to ignite violence at the expense of public peace, law and order.

“We equally urge the authority to criminalize and ban commuter operators from intruding into haulage operations due to their violent and aggressive sales of commuter tickets to truckers on the roads.

“We are also calling on all the unions to comply with the communique agreed at the meeting with the Special Adviser on transport and executive members of the unions in Alausa which banned unions from collecting and extorting tolls on trucks/trailers on the road in any form of disguise,” the group said.

The truckers also called on the government to prevail on the security agencies to remove the multiple checks along the Tin Can axis to check the illegal payment collected at the checkpoints.

“Multiple checks are what brought the ideas of these boys grouping themselves and say if the truckers can be paying these money to security agencies, we too must have a share. We want the government to eradicate these multiple checks so that it will be on only one point.

“People will just wake up and put on reflective jackets and say they are unions and at every checkpoint you pay between N2000 and N3000.

“Between Mile 2 and Coconut, you have more than eight checkpoints and now they have extended it to the Kirikiri axis,” the group lamented.