The National Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO) is raising alarm over the death of about nine of its drivers in 2018 alone. According to the haulage association, the drivers died while on the queue with their trucks to gain access into the Apapa and Tin Can Island ports in Lagos.
Vice chairman, Dry Cargo Section of the Lagos State branch of the NARTO, Alhaji Abdullahi Mohammed Inuwa in a chat with our correspondent, appealed to government to come to their aid and save them from untimely death resulting from the stress of the traffic gridlock in Apapa.
The appeal from NARTO is coming few hours after the death of a truck driver, Mr. Idowu Abiodun Olaegbe, who died last Friday, August 31, 2018.
Idowu death is coming just few days after the sudden death of yet another driver under the same circumstances on the Apapa Oshodi Expressway, while on the queue.
The late Olaegbe was also said to have passed on after waiting endlessly on vehicular queue into Lagos port.
Although, there were reports that the deceased driver had complained of illness the night before his death, and was said to have taken some medication on Thursday night before retiring to sleep in his truck in the queue, but could not make it to the next day.
The NARTO confirmed that, the remains of the late Idowu, who is from Ogbomoso in Oyo State has since been taken home and buried.
It could be recalled that penultimate week; another truck driver was reported to have died while on the queue on the road to Tin Can Port.
According the NARTO vice chairman: ''The recent death of is as a result of stress in this work. It is unfortunate that we continue to lose drivers and motor boys for the reason.''
“I have record of about nine people (drivers and their motor boys) who have died on queues that same way”, he lamented.
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