Harboursandport.com: Lagos - The Council of Maritime Truck Unions and Associations (COMTUA) has said that the Association have lost about 10 of its members, and that about 20 have substained serious injuries following attacks by hoodlums operating around the port access road in the last six months.
Speaking at an interactive section with the Maritime Reporters Association of Nigeria (MARAN) online, President of COMTUA, Adeyinka Aroyewun, said that the Association have also spent several millions of naira to fix their vandalised trucks by these hoodlums during the same period this year.
Aroyewun said that both the Lagos State Government and the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) have been paying deaf ear or pretending not to know even after they have reported the situation to both bodies severally.
According to him, "We have been crying about this, we have made a lot of submissions on this. We have written over 50 letters appealing to the government to get these vandals off the road.
''As we speak, they still vandalise trucks today. They will still vandalise trucks tomorrow because the extortion point and point of vandalisation have not been removed by the government.
"We have seen the Lagos State Government and the NPA were removing shanties and they claimed they were removing hoodlums and extortion points on the roads. They concluded this on Sunday and everything has returned this morning (Tuesday). We cannot estimate what have lost to vandalism."
He said in the COMTUA collaboration, there are 11 unions and associations as at it stands. "It used to be seven and four have voluntarily tendered there resignation.
"We have seven other associations that have joined COMUTUA, our National Congress which holds every year, will take in November.
"We are reviewing our Memorandum of Understanding from time to time. It's not about the dissolution of COMUTUA, new members are coming in and if some members feel they do not need to remain in the collaboration, some still have reasons to remain in the collaboration. COMUTUA is still what it was and we are doing everything possible to improve the lives of our people.
According to him, membership of COMTUA is guided by the association's Memorandum of Association. He said any member that breaches the regulation are sanctioned.
"In 2020, COMTUA expelled the Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria, RTEAN for extortion. Before the expulsion, several letters were written to warn them, but they believe they are above the law. Therefore COMTUA did not hesitate to expelled them from the association.
"Our members are sanctioned for not obeyed traffic rules and regulations. We are assisting the government to ensure that there is sanity on the roads," he noted.
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