Armed robbers have started taking advantage of the usual traffic gridlock which usually stretches from the popular 2nd Rainbow bus stop down to Coconut bus stop along the Apapa-Oshodi expressway.
Shipping Position Daily investigations revealed that the armed robbers have consistently been coming out at midnight to attack the drivers and also cart away essential parts of their vehicles.
They wield guns and cutlasses to rob their victims of cash, handsets, truck batteries and other valuables.
Their targets are truck drivers who have to park and be in their vehicles overnight while waiting for passages to either the port or the tank farms.
Confirming this to Shipping Position Daily in Lagos last week, Vice Chairman of Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD) Unit of National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) at ASCON Oil unit, Comrade Owolabi Jimoh lamented that tanker drivers are suffering, even as he alleged that officers of the Nigerian Navy to whom the union could have reported the case were also in the habit of raiding the stranded drivers and collecting between N1, 000 and N2, 000 as settlements.
He also alleged that the Trinity Police station had little or no solution to these attacks, saying that even the police collect money from the stranded truck drivers.
Comrade Owolabi said that after loading a trip, the truck spend five days from Mile2 to the tank farms at Coconut to lift another product.
“The latest now is that armed robbers usually come now at night to rob our boys, take their handsets and remove their truck batteries and the shafts of their trucks. The battery of the truck is most important to them, it costs N57, 000. We are really suffering and there is nobody to report to”
“Take it from me that all these traffic you see on that road to the depot and to Tin Can Island port, when it is late at night, robbers usually attack them with cutlasses and guns”
“We cannot tell the Navy, they are not helping matters, they also come over to collect between N2, 000 and N1, 000 from the drivers, once its daylight they would go away, they usually come with uniforms. Sometimes all these raiding begins from Second Rainbow bus stop up to Coconut bus stop”
“Trucks belonging to our union leaders are also trapped there, and they have been unable to do anything about it, we are all suffering the brunt, the robbers don’t care if its union leader that owns the truck”.
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