… Recruits Touts As Task Force, Attacks Commercial Vehicles, Passengers
…Its For Passenger Wellbeing-Govt.
By SouthernVoicenews,
Hell was yesterday Friday, July 23, let loose when suspected hired touts allegedly detailed by the Directorate of Transport, Delta State, came out in numbers molesting, harassing and forcefully impounding vehicles belonging to a popular transport company in Delta demanding a sum of One hundred naira per passenger from the drivers.
One of the driver who was beaten for not providing the said amount per passenger narrated that;
“I was on my way to Ughelli with Seven passengers afyer been dispatched from the park. But getting to Immigration junction Asaba, I saw a good number of youths with sticks and clubs flagging me down. I have to stop. They requested for my manifest which I gave to them, but they said the company manifest is useless that it must be a manifest from the state government. Since i am not aware of such manifest, I told them that I won’t be the one to go to their office to collect manifest. I said, if there should be anything of such, it must be your officials that will serve it to my company, but not me. This he said; infuriated the alleged task force personnel and said, the next thing they did was to drag his passengers down and immediately pounced on with random slap from different angle abd forcefully took my vehicle away to the Oshimili South LGA Secretariat”.
A passenger who also narrated her ordeal questioned why she should pay an extra fare to the government. Continuing she said; the way and manner they stopped the vehicle is even enough to call them thieves, but alleged that they were doing this with the backing of some policemen who came with them.
Another commercial driver whose vehicle was also impounded, told this reporter that it is not the duty of the driver to task their passengers, adding that if the state government want to be collecting 100 from each passenger, it should come from them but not from the drivers or the motor parks.
When this reporter visited one of the parks in Asaba, the manager who does not want his name in print, showed a flyer alleged to have emanated from the Directorate of Transport and it reads;
“Delta State Government, Passenger Welfare Scheme. All motor park operators in the state must ensure that all passengers traveling with their vehicles are insured on their trips. Failure to comply will attract fines for both passengers and park owners. In case of accident, the inured or dead passengers would be compensated by the scheme accordingly”.
The manager noted that implementation of such demands will be difficult for them as park owners, on the ground that they cannot convinced passengers to pay extra one hundred naira when traveling after the normal fare.
In his words, “Those proposing such welfare or revenue should come to the park, talk to the passengers themselves and possibly live their officials on ground for such collection, he suggested. Again he said, the state government ought to have also create much awareness and sensitization before coming out to enforce such imposition.
Some passengers who spoke with this reporters lamented such imposition, noting that the state government cannot forcefully extort money from the citizens in the guise of welfare, such they said, is exploitative.
A lawyer who was on transit via the harassed vehicle, maintained that on no account should the state governor approve such a thing considering the harsh economy faced by citizens. He question the sincerity of those saddled with the management of such scheme if truly it is legal, and stated that it is dead on arrival as Deltans will definitely revolt against it.
All efforts made to speak with one of the taskforce proved abortive as he threatened give this reporter a mob beat if he dares take a photograph..
Meanwhile, the impounded vehicle and passengers was said to have paid the sum of Twenty Thousand Naira before allowing the vehicle.
As at the time of filing this report, efforts to reach the director ministry of transport has proved abortive as his phone numbers were switched off, but from what is stated in the flyer, it is the motive of whoever that is creating this to insure the lives of passengers, but the question remains why now and how sincere will the scheme run.