Borno NURTW denies extortion by military on highways
NAN-DS-7
Denial
Maiduguri, Oct. 26, 2016(NAN) The Borno chapter of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NUTRW) has denied media reports that soldiers on escort duty on highways collect money from drivers before performing their duty.
Some media reports had alleged that the soldiers collect up to N100,000 before escorting vehicles on Maiduguri-Dikwa- Gamboru-Ngala highway.
Malam Musa Ahamadu, the Borno NURTW secretary, told a news conference in Maiduguri on wednesday that the report was untrue.
“Anybody who told you that the soldiers are collecting money from passengers is not telling the truth.
“I challenge such person to come out and prove the allegation,” Ahamadu said.
He, said, however, that officials of the union were always at the check points to collect union fees.
“It is true that we are always around to collect union fees from the drivers.
“This money is a token amount charged for the running of the union all over the country,” Ahamadu said.
He attributed the partial closure of the highway by the military to destruction by heavy rains.
“It is true that movement from Maiduguri to Gamboru has been disrupted for some time.
“In fact, for the past 30 days the road had been closed due to its bad condition.
“The military felt bad about the prolonged closure and asked us to try and do something about it.
“So, the Chairman of the union led some members to see things for themselves and we were shocked to find out that the road was in terrible condition from Dikwa to Gamboru,” he said.
Ahamadu said that the union was able to repair the bad portion of the road using trucks of sand.
“We evacuated 18 broken down vehicles before eventually repairing the road,” the secretary said.
Ahamadu said that the prolonged closure of the highway had led to scarcity of foodstuff in Gamboru.
“We realised that an ordinary cube of Maggi was going for as much as N20, so also were other commodities.
“So, on getting the information the military decided that trucks carrying foodstuff must be given priority before others, that was why they allowed them first,” he said.
Ahamadu said it was not true that the military gave priority to the trucks because they were collecting higher amount from them.
Maj.-Gen. Lucky Irabor, the Theater Commander of Operation Lafiya Dole, also said that the military did not need assistance from civilians to perform their duty of escorting vehicles on the highways.
“It is absurd to say that soldiers are collecting N200,000, or even N10 from truck drivers before escorting them.
“We do not need any assistance in terms of logistics to carry out our functions.
“Even if we need such assistance we will pass our request to the appropriate quarters and not through extorting drivers.
“I think that journalists need to be balancing their reports and consider national interest,” Irabor said.(NAN)
ABI/AMY
Edited by Abdullahi Yusuf