Few into the enforcement of the ultimatum that was given by the Nigerian Navy in collaboration with relevant stakeholders in the maritime industry for trucks to vacate bridges in Lagos, especially those leading to Lagos orts, the National Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO), has set up a task force to implement the ultimatum.
The association disclosed this recently to Shipping Position Daily during a chat with the Lagos State Chairman, Dry Cargo, NARTO, Alhaji Abdul Inuwa.
He said that as a responsible association, NARTO will not be partaker of anything that will affect the bridges, adding that the association won’t allow any truck to park on the bridge any longer.
He tool our correspondent that, going by the 48 hours ultimatum given recently by the military to vacate all trucks on the bridge, we as a responsible organisation and investors we will not allow something that will affect the bridge. As long as experts have said that the bridges are getting weak, that is why we collaborated with some security agencies to form a task force. We won’t allow any truck to park on this bridge again. We will ensure them to form a lane and be moving gradually instead of parking on the bridge. We are doing this to supplement the efforts of other security agencies”.
According to him, “the task force committee that we are have formed will ensure that the trucks maintain one lane and we don’t want to see any truck parked on the bridge. We own the trucks and majority of the people there are drivers, so we are not going to compromise. The reason why people default on issues like this is because of compromise and we have warned all our members to desist from compromise because any defaulter will be seriously dealt with”.
Reacting to what the Chairman of Association of Maritime Truck Owners(AMARTO) Chief Remi Ogungbemi, said recently that the ultimatum was an empty threat which is not possible to be implemented, Abdul, said although it might be difficult, but as an association, it will do its best to ensure that the order is carried out.
He said that the ultimatum was supposed to be giving to shipping lines for not providing holding bays and not truckers.
“We know it will be difficult, but we will try our best and see how we can go about it. We know that it is not our responsibility to do that, the people that the ultimatum was giving to are supposed to the shipping companies.”, he added.
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