Priority lane returns, attracts N20,000 per truck

By Godwin Oritse

DESPITE the outcry against the incessant extortion by state and non-state actors along the Lagos port corridors, the menace has taken a new dimension as the Creek Road, Apapa, has now been designated a priority lane, thus attracting N20,000 per truck.

Confirming the development, President of the Council of Maritime Transport Union Association, COMTUA, Comrade Yinka Aroyewun, said that the return of the priority lane is an indication that the electronic call up system otherwise known as ‘ETO’ has failed. The system was designed to enforce orderliness in the movement of trucks in the port corridor to starve off traffic grid-lock.

Aroyewun explained that if the system had not failed truckers will come at the allotted time adding that there will be no traffic to attract any form of priority being given to truckers for a fee.

He stated: “The situation is that ‘ETO’ system has actually failed. If it has not failed, people will come at the allotted time and there will be no traffic to attract any form of fee. The system of priority has returned due to the failure of ‘ETO’.

“‘ETO’ is not adding any value to the system, so there is a priority lane to people that can pay and to certain category of truckers that have been given privileges by the Truck Transit Park.” 

In his reaction, Chairman of the Association of Maritime Truck Owners, AMATO, Remi Ogungbemi, accused truck owners and drivers of offering bribes to the security operatives at the ports.

Ogungbemi said that the truckers cannot be exonerated as they are also culpable in the sharp practices.

He said: “As it is now, anything goes in the port and we all need to search ourselves because in some cases, it is the truckers themselves that will go and meet the security operatives to say their trucks are back of the queue and they want it to come forward.”