Tanker drivers lock down Lagos

Petroleum tanker drivers in Lagos brought the traffic along the Apapa-Oshodi Expressway to a standstill on Monday, in protest of their tankers confiscated by the officials of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA).

Officials of the agency, accompanied by mobile police officers, arrived at the Sanya area of the expressway where the tankers had parked along the entire stretch of the service lane and drove away three tankers.

In protest, the drivers parked tankers and used tyres to barricade both sides of the expressway grounding traffic to a halt for several hours.

Armed police officers from the nearby Ijeshatedo Police Post, led by Haruna Alaba, arrived hours later but could do little to salvage the situation as the drivers refused to shift ground, insisting that their vehicles must be returned to them at no cost.

“There is no fuel; right from last week we have been experiencing this kind of influx of trucks in Lagos,” said Tayo Aboyeji, the Assistant General Secretary, Petroleum Tanker Drivers, Lagos zone.

Aboyeji said that the tanker drivers were waiting to drive into the nearby Capital Oil Truck Park before the LASTMA officials “pounced on them.”

“The yard cannot contain those trucks coming in from different parts of the country. So what happened this morning was that those trucks, they were on the service lane, they want to enter the Capital yard to get their ticket.”

Area boys’ invasion

While the blockade lasted, area boys took over the show.

An oncoming LASTMA towing van was quickly flagged down. The occupants scampered to safety, but the van was not so lucky. The windshield was immediately smashed and more than ten area boys were all over the vehicle carefully stripping it of any valuable motor part.

Three bare bodied young men held the bonnet and forcefully ripped it away from the body of the vehicle. The gathered crowd cheered.

Minutes later, another half clad man emerged with a rectangular metallic box he removed from the engine, lifted it up, again the crowd cheered.

“The boys destroying the trucks are not our drivers,” said Aboyeji. “All the drivers have gone inside the yard. They are area boys. Everybody is angry with LASTMA; that is why they are destroying the motor. We are trying to solve the problem. I’m in touch with the LASTMA leadership, they said they should open the road while I should come and collect the trucks free of charge. I said the drivers want to see their trucks first. If they see the trucks, this

road will be opened.”

A recurrent face off

Over the past few years, tanker drivers and LASTMA have continually engaged in face offs over the impounding of vehicles obstructing traffic on expressways.

The penalty for causing obstruction along the expressway, according to LASTMA, is N25, 000. In addition, the owner is expected to show his tax clearance.

Phone calls and text messages to Young Arabamen, LASTMA’s Chief Executive Officer were neither answered nor replied.

At the LASTMA office at Mile 2, an official of the agency said that “nobody is above the law.”

“What they are doing is not normal. Nobody has the right to block the road, whether expressway or service lane,” said the official who did not want to be named. “We have resolved the matter and have released the trucks to them. But what they are doing is not good.”