Even as the new traffic law that was recently signed by the Governor of Lagos State, Mr. Babatunde Fashola has continued to generate reactions from the nation’s maritime sector, container truck drivers have once again condemned the law especially, the exclusion of their counterparts in trade; the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG)
A cross section of the drivers who bared their minds to Shipping Position Daily in Lagos last week accused the Lagos government of being partial and being prejudiced.
Even as the new traffic law that was recently signed by the Governor of Lagos State, Mr. Babatunde Fashola has continued to generate reactions from the nation’s maritime sector, container truck drivers have once again condemned the law especially, the exclusion of their counterparts in trade; the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG)
A cross section of the drivers who bared their minds to Shipping Position Daily in Lagos last week accused the Lagos government of being partial and being prejudiced.
The truck drivers argued that both tanker drivers and container laden truck drivers ought to be treated as equal before the law, because the two sector is important in driving the economy of the country and that one is not important than the other.
One of the truck drivers, Mr. Olajuwon Bello who spoke with our correspondent, argued that “whatever is good for the goose is good for the gander” and that truck drivers are facing hard times at the port without any considerations from the government.
“Container truck drivers are facing the same problems the tanker drivers are facing, if you come to Tin Can very early in the morning or late at night you will see what we are going through, we are being arrested all the time”
“The security people there are not living up to expectation, I have experienced a lot of extortion being carrying out there” Bello alleged
Another driver, Mr. Innocent Okorie who equally lamented the exclusion of tanker drivers from the law said that already, Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA) have already started using the new law to extort money from innocent drivers.
He however advised that government should exclude container trucks from the law and consider expanding the roads to the port and make it smooth.
“I advocate that what the Lagos State Government did during the time of Tinubu at CMS should also be done in this situation, they divided the road into two, containers are allowed to park on one lane and anyone that violates the law should be arrested, if they can repair the roads and partition the roads so that containers would not be blocking the entire road, I think we will be fine” he said
While defending the NUPENG on its exclusion from the law, a member of NUPENG, Mr. Olanife Adeoye told Shipping Position Daily that the reasons why tanker drivers were excluded from the law is because they are the oil that drives the economy, secondly because the hardship that the tanker drivers are facing on the roads is caused by the government itself.
“The issue of tanker drivers is a peculiar one in Lagos, mostly it is not their fault, it is a special interest because this is the oil that moves the nation” Adeoye said
Speaking further, he argued that, “government collected money before the approval of the depots that are located here, the revenue is going to the pocket of the government and not into the pocket of the tanker drivers, so if they have made money from it and they are now causing problems for the tanker drivers, then the government needs to find a way to at least softy pedal on the problems of the tanker drivers”
“It is the fault of the government who have not been able to solve the problem in the Niger Delta area so that the trucks coming from that axis would load from there and ease the congestion in Lagos”
“A tanker driver will leave Enugu, Nnsuka, Abuja to come and pick products here, they want to go back to their families immediately, but because of the congestion they cannot go, they are fussed to spend weeks on the roads and sleeping inside the gutter” he argued
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