Follow Us on Google
•Say 34 people killed in 2 yrs
By Steve Agbota [email protected]
Truckers in Nigeria are writhing in pains. Aside bad roads patrolled kidnappers and armed robbers, they are also ‘attacked’ by louts who extort and torture them endlessly.
The trauma is forcing many of them to dump the haulage business for menial jobs. Daily Sun learned that truck owners are now short of drivers due to extortion and illegal checkpoints mounted across the roads, especially in Lagos state.
The louts inflict hardship on the truck owners and drivers, making business difficult for them.
Daily Sun learnt that extortion and brutality of truckers have become the rule, rather than the exception as state and non-state actors are deeply involved in it. The most notorious spots are the Oshodi-Mile 2 and the Tin-Can Island Port Complex (TCIPC) corridors.
As a result, 34 people were allegedly killed between 2022 and 2024 over their alleged refusal to bribe government and non-government actors who operate along the port corridors.
Many truckers are now leaving Lagos for other states while foreign investors are discouraged to invest in the nation’s haulage business.
Truck drivers, who spoke with Daily Sun, said that extortion of drivers by security agents and touts have intesified as failure to bribe results to brutality and destruction of containers loaded with imported goods.
Consequently, importers, clearing agents and truck owners have expressed concerns over the worsening extortion of truckers by touts and security agents along Lagos roads.
For instance, the recent nefarious activities of louts along Otto-Wharf Mile 2 road resulted in the fall of a truck as one extortionist, while struggling with the steering wheel, fell off and died and a truck was set ablaze at the Amuwo Odofin area of Lagos State in atonement for that.
One of the truck owners, Dike Collins, who spoke to Daily Sun, lamented that the louts attacked and caused his truck to fall in the process of demanding money from the driver.
He said that anybody operating a truck business in the country was suffering and going through a lot in the hands of the louts.
“Nobody is doing anything about these louts. They are making life and business difficult for us. We are dying. We are just working for these looters who call themselves area boys. They are everywhere across all the roads in Lagos, constituting a nuisance and wreaking havoc on truckers. They are killing us and nobody is coming to our rescue. Lagos state government has to do something about this menace.
“Due to this problem of extortion, 65 per cent of trucks are not working. Even seven of my trucks are parked. The small ones that are working, louts are not allowing us to work and they are extorting us. We have been milked by these louts and nobody is doing anything about it,” he said.
According to him, the major cause of the gridlock around the Mile2-Oshodi expressway was racketeering on top of the bridge and around the Mile 2 axis.
“If you are coming from Oshodi, just at Second Rainbow, you will be extorted, after Second Rainbow, you would be extorted, at Fatgbem, after Fatgbem and just before you ascend the Mile 2 bridge, you will be extorted for N1,000, N2,000 and up to N5,000 depending on your negotiating power.
“The purpose of calling up these trucks from Eto is actually supposed to be a good one. What we have now are parks where some of these stakeholders falsely claim to have facilities. They just stay there collecting money from truckers without rendering any services and these trucks later find their ways on the roads,” he said.
A truck driver, Sunday Nnanna, said the activities of area boys and union toll collectors manning the various checkpoints unlawfully collect money from truckers just like the security and traffic operatives have also become one of the banes of traffic orderliness and sanity at the Mile 2-TinCan corridor.
He alleged that the security operatives feign helplessness instead of warding off the miscreants and other union toll collectors causing traffic and unlawfully imposing tickets on truckers.
He lamented that the traffic and security operatives are somewhat handicapped in promoting traffic orderliness because their primary agenda is not to control traffic, but finding ways they profiteer from the traffic anarchy.
However, he advised the Lagos State government to ban the activities of area boys and toll collecting unions causing traffic gridlock on the highways.
He advised that unions should stop selling tickets to truckers that are not their members.
Recounting the last Sunday fracas, chairman, Lagos State Truck and Cargo Operators Committee (LASTCOC), Lukman Zangalo, said that the incident happened when louts at Otto-Wharf Mile 2 road struggled with the steering of a truck with the truck driver, leading to the fall of truck.
He added that the incident makes it the fourth time touts would be causing loaded trucks to fall at Otto-Wharff this year alone.
He also said that touts at Amuwo Odofin set a truck ablaze after one of them, in attempt to extort driver, fell from a moving truck and lost his life.
He lamented that the activities of touts and union thugs against truck and cargo operators is adversely affecting the ease of doing transportation business in Lagos State.
He disclosed that haulage businesses are relocating from Lagos state and foreign investors are being discouraged from investing in Nigeria.
According to him, trucking business is slowly collapsing due to sabotage by the activities of touts affiliated to RTEAN and touts NURTW.
“We are calling on Lagos government to declare outright ban on the activities of area boys and also tell NURTW and RTEAN to leave truck operators and focus on buses within their jurisdiction to avoid violent confrontation, break down of law and order.
“We truckers don’t collect money from buses. We don’t disturb their business. Therefore, NURTW and RTEAN don’t have the right on the road to be destroying our trucks, wounding our drivers and causing people’s imported containers to fall under the guise illegal toll collection,” he lamented.
