Truckers’ Extortion: MAJAN Recommends Permanent Solution To Hoodlums Activities At Truck-Out -Points
Truckers’ Extortion: MAJAN Recommends Permanent Solution To Hoodlums Activities At Truck-Out -Points
…….. identifies hike in petroleum pump price as a catalyst to economic hardship in Nigeria
By Ebenezer William
Maritime Journalists’ Association of Nigeria (MAJAN) has commended the Lagos State Government and Nigerian Port Authority (NPA) for the quick intervention in averting truckers’ planned strike as a result of extortion and harassment by hoodlums along Port Corridor.
In a communique issued at the end of its monthly meeting held on Thursday, 12 September 2024, at its Secretariat in Apapa, Lagos, the association addressed issues affecting the Nation and suggested that Lagos State Government and Nigeria Port Authority should intensify effort in tackling extortion by mounting security surveillance at necessary points along Tin Can-Mile 2 Port Corridor to ward off further incursion of hoodlums.
It stressed that Security agencies/personnel that will mount the surveillance points should not turn the place into another checkpoint of extortion as this will be counterproductive.
Similarly, the association also identified a hike in petroleum pump prices as being responsible for the economic hardship currently experienced by Nigerians and consequently suggested that the government should deploy measures to cushion the effect of this hardship.
“Government should give financial subvention, provide farming materials to farmers, subsidize transport fare, among others. Items such as fertilizer, seedlings, herbicides, water pumping machines and hoses, animal feeds, subsidized kids and calves should be made available to farmers as an encouragement to boost productivity,” the association said.
The group wondered where the money removed from the subsidy was ploughed. It urged the government to tell Nigerians how they have utilized the money removed from subsidy and what sector of the economy has the money been ploughed into.
Why urging the government to protect the consumers from exploitation, the group posited that Nigerians should hold the State Governors and the local governments accountable For the current hardship in the land. It noted that the monthly allocation to both the state governments and local governments is not properly utilised, and this has left the citizens impoverished.
The group also advised the government to stop ad-hoc solutions to the nation’s economic problems, but should rather come up with deliberate economic plans to better the future of the country.
They also advised the government to revamp the refineries and get them working. It noted that if the refineries in the country were operational, the nation would not be having the current issues it is facing now. It therefore urged the senate and the government to tell Nigerians why the refineries have refused to function, even as the government continues to pay salaries and allowances of the workers in those refineries.
While noting the high rate of unemployment in the country, the group urged the government to create an enabling environment for job creation, adding that the government should make our economy a productive one and not a consumer economy, as it is presently.
Addressing the now rampant issue of Danger on the wheel, popularly called “One Chance,” highway robberies, where unsuspecting commuters are lured into vehicles stuffed with armed robbers, the group enjoined the State Government to beef up security on highways.
It also encouraged the Police to conduct checks on commercial vehicles, periodically, as commercial buses are mostly used by these dare-devil robbers to perpetrate their nefarious activity.
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