Story by Dili Utomi.
The cry against the activities of various entities-government and nongovernmental to stop the haranguing, harassment and extortion being perpetuated against truckers and other legitimate transport workers is getting louder by the day.
The various transport unions and associations and individual owners of transport businesses have been consistently up in arms against the choking effects of multiple extortion that they say they have to bear in the hands of various powerful individuals and organisations.
The cry elicited concerns from various quarters which also prompted an action on our part and we went to town to feel the pulse of the chairman of the newly formed Kirikiri Truckers Association and also that of the vice chairman of the association. The full interviews are presented below.
Question. Good morning sir, please introduce yourself?
Answer. I am Kevin Okechukwu, I am the owner of nedu logistics solutions, a trucking company with a bias to the maritime sector, I am also the chairman of Kirikiri Truckers Association.
Question. Sir you have formed a new association and we know that there are so many truckers association in existence for years now, what informs your decision to form this association, the other associations are basically doing exactly what you want to do but what informed your group to form this association?
Answer. We formed this association because the multiplicity of associations in the maritime sector do not care for the interest basically of those of us in Kirikiri. Kirikiri is a maritime hub, if you may know, we have a lot of bonded terminals here like the Kirikiri Lighter Terminal and the Kirikiri Phase One which are among other terminals. We have more than 10 terminals here, so it is a kind of hub within the maritime sector, so we have many truckers here because it is a hub. We are facing some challenges that other truckers are not facing. We have a lot of people that just form themselves into groups and start extorting money from truckers and for us the businessmen of Kirikiri, it is becoming a big problem. Even those who are resident in Kirikiri, but do not get businesses in Kirikiri do suffer the same problems. Our trucks may want to go to Apapa or Tin Can or any other other part of lagos to do business, but when they come back to Kirikiri to park their trucks, all those extortion that are meant for people operating at the terminal will now catch up with them. All of us in Kirikiri are facing big problem for instance, if your truck is coming back for maintenance, maybe you have done some work in Apapa and you want to come back to your garage to do maintenance, they will start extorting money from you without caring that you are not coming to move any container, but just coming in to maintain your truck. You will go on to spend about fifteen thousand naira (₦15,000.00) to access your garage or parking lot and that is a very big problem. When going out again you spend another fifteen thousand naira (₦15,000.00). So, we sat down and decided that this thing is too much for us, some of our members have left Kirikiri and relocated to other parts of lagos where extortion is less. Some of us cannot move out, some of us have landed property here, we have garages here, we have our shops here there is no way we can move, so we then decided that we should form an association to protect ourselves, at least to stop the extortion if we can or reduce it if we cannot stop it. So that is the major reason why we formed this association, the Kirikiri truckers have been over exploited.
Question. Would you say that the other associations which you probably have hitherto belonged to have not protected your interest to the extent that you wanted or that the protection was non-existent, what would you say about that?
Answer. They were not protecting us, they don’t even know the problem of Kirikiri, they are not aware, they are always after Tin Can and Apapa which are bigger maritime hubs, but this our local problems here they are not aware and even if they are aware, they are not able to solve the other problems not to talk about our own . Like I told you, we have many unions, so because we have many of them they are not talking with one voice . The people here will say no, the other persons will say yes, that is even the major reason why we cannot embark on industrial action with the way things are going. I think truckers are supposed to unite and go on industrial action to stop all these extortion everywhere, but because we have multiple unions and they are fighting each other it is not possible, if this union is going on strike the other Union will be working and taking advantage of the situation, strike cannot work, protest cannot work, nothing works and we had to take a look at it all and say that we that are domiciled in Kirikiri should form a Union and try to at least even if we cannot solve the general problem, let’s see if we can solve our zonal or local problem. Our localised problem is the many extortion points that are in Kirikiri, we know that in Kirikiri here the local government is exploiting us, we have three to four points where the Ajeromi Ifelodun local government area collects money from Kirikiri truckers alone. You are now in Kirikiri, you know how small Kirikiri is, Kirikiri is not up to one kilometre in radius, but within this one kilometre you have four local government extortion points, the Navy personnel are there collecting money too, the Nigeria Police personnel are there, the Prisons personnel are there, the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) personnel are there, then the Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria (RTEAN) members are collecting their’s too. The National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) are collecting money and all of these are from each truck.
Question. So what are the modalities you want to adopt to tackle this problem , is it formal or non-formal, compromise with this people? What are your modalities for tackling these problems sir?
Answer. We have written a lot of petitions to the various government agencies like the local and state governments. We are even working on going to court , we want to take some of those Unions to court so that they can then show to us the reasons why they are on the road collecting money illegally. We have done protest before which yielded some fruits, because before now, the situation was worse than this, it was our protest of last year that reduced the points and we still do plan to do more protests because we want to achieve more. Again, we are trying, just like we have invited you now to use the media, we are going to the media. The last time we did protest we were lucky that the Sun Newspaper came over and covered the protest which yielded a lot of fruits because it gave the protest a very wide coverage which some of these actors are afraid of because they want to do their things in secret. Once the press comes in and they know the press is around, their activities will become curtailed, so we intend bringing more press men to cover our activities, to see our plight, to highlight and broadcast our plight to the whole world, so that people will hear us and come to our aid.
Question. Apart from the press have you really, really written the various governments, the local, state and probably the federal authorities within the area to highlight these problems that you have enumerated?
Answer. We have not gone to the Federal, I will not tell you a lie, I know that we have gone to local government on several occasions , we have written to the state, no reply and I think we have gone to the Police, we have gone to the Navy, we have gone to the Prisons. Yes, they understand our plight and they try to talk to their men but still we have not gotten all we needed, but I think we should also write to the Federal Government also, but we have not done that.
Question. Sir, these problems they seem multi-layered and multi-dimensional, beyond these two things that you have talked about, these two modalities, using the press and using the government. Why don’t you try the issue of the protest that you talked little about before, peaceful protest, we know that it is effective , because with the one that is being planned nationally ahead now, we are seeing the subtle changes that the government is quickly making?
Answer. Why we are finding it difficult to have protest is that this our Union is a Union of big men, truck owners , some of them are over 50 years of age, how do you expect someone that is over 50 or a chief that is employing 50 people to come and start protesting? If it were the kind of Unions that involves drivers and conductors that can gather crowd, it will be easy, our Union is a Union of big men, rich men do not protest, it is not always easy, the last time we did protest, the turn up was not much and I will tell you the truth because people that are rich are not known to protest that is the reason protest is not.
Question. Don’t you think that that is why they are also exploiting you guys, because like you said, you cannot protest, you cannot do any such thing. If you have a problem, protest is a legitimate thing enshrined in our constitution, it is a legitimate means of addressing your problem, so why don’t you guys try it and see the effect?
Answer. Just like I told you , we have tried it before but rich men are not known to do protest unless we have a wider association that will involve drivers, conductors then we can now mobilise people that can protest. Just look at this my Oga here, can you ask him to protest? There is a level you get to in the society that you can no longer protest.
Mr. Emmanuel Okafor, the vice chairman of the Kirikiri Truckers Association also gave his own opinion on the matter.
Question. Sir, the chairman has enumerated some of the problems that members are embattled with, what is your take on the matter?
Answer. All that the chairman has said are the daily reality of what truckers pass through in this Kirikiri axis of Lagos. We have a lot of terminals, but face a lot or problems coming in or out of this area. If you are coming in from the Oshodi area, as soon as you get to Fatgbems filling station, the extortion starts whether the truck is loaded or not and by the time you get to the NIMASA office junction at Kirikiri, you would have paid at least fifteen thousand naira (₦15,000.00). Some organise themselves as Unions, some as local government personnel, some represent the security agencies. It is because the other associations do not protect us that we pulled out to form the Kirikiri Truckers Association.
Question. Now, these monies being collected by the various agency personnel, what chart do they use and what name do they call the monies collected?
Answer. The various monies collected are not even put on any subhead, the extortionists only tell you that they represent different bodies as stated and of course they are not accounted for anyhow. We have been to the local government authorities to complain, but nothing has come out of it all so far.
It is incumbent on the authorities to listen to these perennial extortion complaints of truckers who play very vital role of moving goods, services and persons around the Nigerian economy because any crippling effect on their services is ultimately the crippling of the national economy.
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