“Even If I Have Money To Buy A Tanker, I Will Not Buy" …Mr Olawale Olalekan (Petroleum Tanker Driver)
In the last couple of weeks, we have witnessed many accidents involving petroleum products tankers. Lives have been lost in these accidents. Some people have blamed the accidents on the poor state of the trucks, while others have blamed them on the poor state of Nigerian roads. At the center of it all are petroleum tanker drivers who are usually roundly accused of having a hand in these mishaps. But the life of the average tanker driver is an interesting one. It took Dapo Olawuni several attempts before he could get one of them to open-up. Mr Olawale Olalekan spoke in Yoruba language, but Dapo had no qualms with translating his encounter into English language for your delight.
Can you briefly tell us who you are; your name, background and education?
My name is Olawale Olalekan; I am one of the tanker drivers in this country with experiences in travelling long distances. I have little education; I was born in Ibadan, Oyo state where I did my secondary school at Lagelu grammar school in 1998. After this, I went into learning a vocation and from there; I came into this truck-driving business. I am married with three kids.
How many years have you been driving tanker?
I have been on the job as an apprentice and now as driver for about 15 years, but I started driving tanker professionally about 12 years ago. I usually take products to the East, to the North and I also work within Lagos state as well.
How long does it take you to take product from Lagos to your destinations and come back?
It all depends on where I am going, if it is within Lagos or just to Ibadan it is just a day’s journey, but if I am going to far- away places like Abuja, I normally spend two days on the road and sometimes three days because of traffic and bad roads, in that case one need to exercise patience.
How do you cope with the long absence from home and family?
I have been doing this work for a long time now, any woman that wants to marry a tanker driver needs to be ready and must also accept that her husband will be sleeping out. I have left my house since yesterday and I am yet to go back home, our work is just like the military where you can be called upon at anytime for duty; when a solder is called upon for war, he does not have any excuse but to comply, we can also be called upon to come and load products at anytime. For example, there are some drivers here who have been on the queue for two to three days and they are yet to load products, the driver must not leave the tanker on queue to go back home just because he was unable to load, he has to ensure that he gets the product, he can only call his wife that he will not be coming home for the day.
I am told that tanker drivers love women and that they have female partners in all major towns on their way to and from the depots.
I will say yes and no, many tend to forget what drove them into doing this job; maybe after they start seeing little money, but a man that has wives and kids at home will not leave his family to go and be staying with any female partner. Of course, there are people who are doing it, but as for me, I can never do such a thing because I am always focused on where I am going and my main concern is that God should protect me in all my trips and the little money that is my gain will go to my wife and kids so that they their spirit will always bless me.
Where do you pass the nights on any of such long travels?
Normally, I don’t drive late in the night because we have been given standing instructions at our unit here and I am sure it is the same at all the units. We were given a circular to that effect- that we can only work from 6.am to 7.pm, but as for me, I make sure that I get to maybe a small village where I park my truck and I sleep inside my truck, there is no place that I can not sleep.
Is it not dangerous for you, to sleep in an environment you are not familiar with?
It is only God that can assure you of safety, if you decide to sleep in a hotel you can also be attacked there, there is no where that mishaps can not occur. Normally we are given trip allowances whenever we are on a trip, out of this money, we have feeding and accommodation, but if you decide to lodge in a hotel, there will not be enough money for you to take back home and it is this little allowance that will be sustaining us pending when we are paid another salary by month end. But if you are given trip allowance of N20,000 and you begin to spend it lavishly, there will be nothing left for you and this is what makes some drivers to speed up and commit all sorts of things. As for me the little I am given, I make sure that I manage it well. If we are travelling to Suleja in Abuja for instance, we are given about N12,000 for feeding and every other thing, apart from this we are also paid salaries by the owner of the truck we are driving.
There have been several allegations of adulteration of products and pilfering by tanker drivers, are these allegations true?
It is not true because after loading the product from the depot, before you get out of the gate your tank is sealed at the top and at the bottom, a seal number is also written on the seal, it is impossible to break the seal because the seal number of both the bottom and top of the tank have already been written on the way bill. Before the truck leaves the depot, there are haulages working there as part of management, they are the ones that write the seal number on the way bill, so it is totally impossible for the driver to get another seal with the number that will match the one on the waybill. And on getting to your point of discharge, the first thing they check is the seal number and if it does not match the one on your waybill they instantly alert the marketer.
Who bears the loss whenever there is a tanker accident or an explosion?
It is the owner of the truck and the owner of the product that will bear the loss, the owner of the destroyed tanker can not be asked to come and bear the cost of the product, so also the owner of the product can not be asked to pay for the tanker, and no tanker driver can intentionally destroy the truck, our prayers always is that we should get to our destination safely.
Will the driver of such a truck be arrested?
The driver is always detained until investigations are completed. How much does a tanker driver have that he wants to pay with? Maybe you are paid N20,000 in a month and out of this you will pay your house rent; your children’s school fees and you will also want to make some savings, so where will the money come from? Arresting the tanker driver is like being wicked too him, yes, it is as if they are being wicked to him. But, there are also some bad eggs amongst us.
How much are you paid in a month?
I am paid N20,000 per month, I have three children presently and as the saying goes ‘cut your coat according to your clothe’, so with this I know the type of school I will send my children to that it will not affect me or push me to do what I don’t want to do, I pay their school fees per term, when I collect my salary, I usually buy foodstuffs at home that can take us for at least two months and by the time, I get my salary it would have been time to pay for school fees or to cover other things, there are some government workers that are not earning that much, but they are still surviving.
How are you coping with the bad roads?
First of all, I will thank the government because they have at least repaired some parts of the out of the bad roads. Formerly, when the roads were still good, the hours you spend on the road if you are travelling from Lagos to the East is the same hours that another person will spend between Ore and Ofosu. I have spent about seven hours in Ore traffic before from 1.pm to 7.pm, I only managed to take a bike from where I parked my truck and I went to sleep. The government is trying, but there is still need for them to try harder and work more. For example, if we are travelling to the North, we don’t usually take the normal route, if you are going to Abuja for instance you will have to first of all go through Lokoja which is a longer route, but it is because of the bad roads that is making us to pass through there. The normal route for us to take to Abuja is Ilorin, but because of the bad roads, we take these longer routes, government should repair the roads because they are worst, especially from Ibadan to Ilorin, there is always a terrible traffic at Ogbomosho where you can spend three days.
In your opinion what do you think is the cause of frequent tanker explosions and accidents?
Personally, I have had accidents in the past, when you are good at what you do and you make a mistake, if the professionals on the job get to the scene and see your mistake they will identify that you are indeed a professional not withstanding your mistake. There are some accidents that are inevitable and there are some that are caused by sheer carelessness, the main cause of this for some drivers is over confidence, that is why I said earlier that I don’t drive late in the night, because if I decide to drive late in the night alone on the expressway there will be no problem but what about the person coming at my back that is in much hurry than I am? There is nobody that is perfect in this job.
Have you had any accident on this job before or have you been robbed?
I have had just one accident before, it was a very fatal accident, I did not kill anybody, but the tanker was burnt down, it was as a result of the bad roads, but God saved us, I was driving towards a Police check point at Ofosu when I saw the police officers running away, the motor boy seating beside me did not observe his side of the truck which has already caught fire, meanwhile it was raining heavily and I was carrying fuel, we can not ascertain the cause of the fire because there was no burst tyre. We had left Ore around 5.am and the tanker got burnt down by 7.am before we got to Ofosu, we cannot say it was over speeding that caused that, it was the bad state of the road. The owner of the truck arrested me and my motor boy and locked us up, but those that I have formally worked for stood up and came to my rescue, they came all the way from Lagos to Ore to bail me out, I have never had a shortage of even one liter since I have been driving a tanker. I have never been robbed before, sometimes I get there and see that they have finished robbing at a place or I might have gone before it happened.
I am told that security agents collect money from tanker drivers illegally, is it true?
It is very true, for example, before the last Eid el Kabir celebrations, I loaded a tanker and I was heading towards the Texaco filling station at Ojota, on getting to Oshodi, my tanker broke down and I came down. Within the five minutes, a bus had parked in my front and I saw mobile police men come down, they said they have come to arrest me because my truck stopped, I told them that we had repaired the truck and that we were already on our way, but they refused, they asked us to proceed to their office at Oshodi; the one beside the LASTMA office, I had to call my boss who came down and gave them money before they allowed us to go. Government should find a lasting solution to this problem especially the LASTMA officials who are inconveniencing tanker drivers, their’s is even more than that of the Police because this very day I am talking about, the LASTMA and the police were fighting over my truck on whose right it is to arrest me which is not supposed to be, the truck broke down and we fixed what was wrong in it, we were on our way when they arrested us. So this is the main secret of the bad blood between tanker drivers and security agents, if the disturbance from them is too much, then anything can happen.
In most cases, how much do you use to ‘bail’ your trucks from these officers?
LASTMA is the worst, if they should seize your tanker they will ask you to go and pay N150,000 , if they just want to have mercy on you, they will take N70,000 from you, we have had cases where someone bailed his truck with N100,000 and even N200,000. I was working with a company sometime ago when they came to pack all our trucks from our Amuwo Odofin park, we were packing outside then because they were yet to complete the inside, they took five of our trucks and we ‘bailed’ them with N1.2million.
It then means that there is a lot of money in the job?
Definitely there is money because it takes a lot to buy even an ordinary tanker head which costs not less than N3million, the tank itself costs about N2million which will be a very standard one.
How rich are you as a tanker driver?
I do not have money; I am still begging God to give me money. We are doing this job in order not to remain idle at home, at the end of the month I get my salary which I use to take care of my family; this is the only money I have, even if I have money to buy a tanker today I will not buy it because it is not easy to maintain, if a tanker driver has money to buy anything he will rather buy a car. Some of the tanker owners do not wish their boys to progress in the job to the extent of buying his own truck but there are some that will be happy to see you buy one. I have seen some here that will ask you to bring your money for them to add to it so that you can buy a car instead of buying a bike, you will know that such a person really wants your progress, but there are some that will begin to monitor you from that moment henceforth.
What causes shortage of product?
The problem is usually from the owners of the filling station. There was an incident I had with a filling station where I was told that there was shortage in the product I brought, I called my boss instantly and he came over to the place, consequently they called the official of the station that offloaded the product and we were asked to swear to it if truly we had no hand in it but the owners of the filling station quickly backed down because they knew they were lying about the shortage and the product was in their tanks. Any driver that does not have anybody to stand for him in such situation will easily be implicated and again the inexperience of some drivers also cause the problem, when the filling station know that you are inexperienced in terms of gauging the product you are bringing, they tend to use you and accuse of shortage.
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