Petroleum Tankers Drivers Decrie Lagos Govt’s Indiscriminate Towing of Their Trucks

Petroleum Tanker Drivers are lamenting the incessant harassment and alleged extortion by men of Lagos State Traffic Management Authority, LASTMA under the authority of Lagos State Commissioner of Transport, Oluwaseun Osiyemi and Special Adviser on Transport, Sola Giwa.

The lamentations are coming after a movie-like clamping on the drivers at the Ibeju Lekki area by the men of LASTMA, Lagos State Task Force and some thugs allegedly working for them.

According to the drivers, LASTMA officials together with some police officers and thugs arrived the area at the wee hour of Saturday February 22 and started sending them away from their trucks and eventually towed them away.

One of the drivers explained, “When we try to explain to them that we were not obstructing the road but parked on a single lane as we could not travel at night because of the safety instruction by our union, they started manhandling us. They shot into the air, shot teargas directly at us and eventually arrested some of us.”

The drivers narrated how the State Officials put their thugs who are non-tanker drivers to drive loaded trucks at that hour of the night.

“They do not even care about accidents that may occur in the process,” one of the drivers said.

The drivers wondered why Lagos State Government and its agencies are always after Petroleum Tanker Drivers.

According to them, they pay their taxes, pay for their vehicles documents and make other obligations as a working citizen of Nigeria, so they ask to know why Lagos State in particular is making work difficult for them.

They call on the State Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu and the PTD-NUPENG leaders to intervene in the matter and put a stop to the recurrent disruptive acts of the state transport ministry and its agency.

The drivers further wondered what the Lagos State Government and its Agencies have contributed to support the functionaries of the seaport, refinery, depot and other businesses in the area.

“What extra road did they build? What trailer park did they build? What facilities did they provide in that community to make life easy for citizens and workers?” they asked.

They added, “Any vehicle driving from Eleko to the refinery will have to turn back to the same Eleko to exit the road. There is no other link road in the area. God forbid that there is any serious blockage on the road, there is no way out for anybody.

“Instead of the State Commissioner of Transportation and S.A Sola Giwa to think of a solution and advise the government to provide an access road for people and businesses in the area, they are busy towing Petroleum Tanker Trucks and imposing E-Call up because of their pockets.”

According to one of the drivers, he heard from a reliable source that Dangote Group proposed to build a 10,000 truck-capacity Park to support his refinery but that Lagos State Government allegedly dissuaded him from building the park, promising him that they will provide Trailer Park in the axis.

“Where is the park today?” the driver asked.

“All they did was to connive with a private consultant to come up with a questionable E-Call up system where they will charge N12,500 per truck for a single loading, money they want to share among themselves.

“With the way they are going about it, having seen Petroleum Tanker Trucks as their easy target for fund raising, they will eventually ask Petroleum Tanker to pay up to N50,000 before they can have access to loading in Lagos State Refinery and depots.

“We cannot continue to be extorted like this. We cannot continue to be subjected to this ill treatment and constant humiliation by Lagos State Task Force and LASTMA

“We are not criminals, why will they attack us at midnight. What work is LASTMA doing by 2am. We want the authority to come to our rescue from the hands of this wicked officials.”