By Providence Ayanfeoluwa

The Council of Maritime Transport Unions and Associations, COMTUA, has lamented the gradual extinction of indigenous operators in the trucking business in the Nigerian maritime sector.

President of COMTUA, Mr Yinka Aroyehun, expressed this concern  at a meeting of the Presidential Task Team, PSTT, held recently in Lagos.

Aroyehun lamented that multinational companies including Bollore, Medlock among others, have infiltrated and taken over truck owning businesses with a large number of fleets, thereby throwing the indigenous operators into unemployment.

He alleged that in 2022 alone, not less than 22 persons were killed along the Tin Can Port corridor due to extortion of truckers and fight for territory among various unions.

He however pointed out that the port corridor into Apapa and Tin Can Port is now free of traffic because there are no cargoes to lift from the port and truckers have sold their trucks.

“This matter was reported to the port command, state command, and the Assistant Inspector of General of Police, AIG and so on, and up till now, nobody is near the investigation, talk less of prosecution. At Mile 2 in 2022, seventeen people were killed in territory and supremacy battles and nobody was prosecuted up till now.

 ”If you need a truck going from Tin Can Port to Agbara for N180,000, when you buy gas and so on, you have to give N30,000 to the driver because of the area boys on the roads.

“The VIO has intervened a couple of times and they are tired. Each time you fix your headlamps, it would be broken again by these boys, our trucks are now rickety, destroyed by these hoodlums and the money to fix them is no longer there.

“We are not protected, the business that is supposed to be done by indigenous companies have been taken over by multinationals, you would see hundreds of trucks owned by foreigners, Bollore, Medlock and so on” he stated.