The Joint Drivers Association of Nigeria (JDWAN), Lagos State Chapter, say they won’t shelve their proposed seven days warning strike meant to kick off on Monday, October 31, 2022, remains sacrosanct.
The joint drivers made this known on Friday at a press briefing, which held at the Right’s House, Adeniyi Jones, Ikeja, Lagos State.
Those expected to participate in the upcoming strike are drivers of mini buses (Korope), coaster buses federal Mass Assisted Transit, Mazda buses, T4, LT, Ford and cars who will remove their vehicles off Lagos roads for one week.
Addressing the press conference, the Lead Counsel to the drivers, Ayo Ademiluyi, said the strike action has become imperative to protest multiple extortion and violent harassment by members of Lagos State Parks and Management Committee led by Musiliu Akinsanya popularly known as MC Oluomo, in conjunction with law enforcement agencies in the state.
According to him, the drivers lose more than half of their income to the motor park boys through exorbitant levies in the garages and bus-stops whether or not they pick or drop passengers.
He kicked against the formation of the parks and garages committee saying this was not backed up by law.
In his address, the National Leader of the association, Comrade Akintade Abiodun said the multiple levies on the joint drivers by the garage boys and law enforcement agents have led to increase in the prices of food items in Lagos compared with other states, as consignments into the state are heavily levied by garage boys and touts who mount road blocks on Lagos roads to extort the drivers.
Narrating one of the ugly incidents the drivers experience in the hands of garage boys and touts, the General Secretary of the association, Ajimatanrareje Feyisayo recounted that a driver, Ademola Anisere was seriously injured and his vehicle damaged by garage touts in Badagry, about a month ago, for failure to remit the early morning levies at one of the bus-stops.
Anisere was said to be coming out of his home to pick passengers when some garage touts swooped on him and all his pleas that he was just starting the day’s work fell on deaf ears and he was beaten Black and Blue while his vehicle was damaged.