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BY RAYMOND OZOJI, Awka
Tipper drivers in Anambra state are set to block the Onitsha axis of the federal highway in the state on Friday 28th June over allegations of forceful collection of N200,000 from each tipper by officials of the Anambra State Road Traffic Management Agency (ARTMA).
Chairman of the Onitsha zone of Tipper Drivers Comrade Ebuka Unekwe who spoke to this journalist exclusively concerning the ordeals and excruciating experience of his colleagues in the hands of ARTMA officials stationed in Onitsha, said the ARTMA officials claimed that they were instructed by the agency's Managing Director to collect N200,000 from each Tipper Driver operating in the area.
Although efforts to contact ARTMA Managing Director was abysmally unsuccessful, chairman of the Onitsha zone of Tipper Drivers further disclosed that their members always have problems navigating through Uga junction due to the very deplorable condition of that portion of the road.
Unekwe complained that tippers always fell down at the bad portion and often created very herculine problems for the drivers; hence they resorted to plying Niger street through Port Harcourt Road down to Upper Iweka all in Onitsha.
He said when they got to Upper Iweka to connect the flyovers, ARTMA officials and some security agents would jump into their tippers around 10pm at night and compelled them to move into the park where they forcefully collected N200,000 from their victims on the condition that it was Governor Charles Chukwuma Soludo they were working for.
He said the ARTMA officials do not accept cash transfers but insist that they must be given physical cash before any tipper in their net would be released, pointing out that there is one Mr. Akachukwu an indigene of Ebonyi state, allegedly employed by the ARTMA Managing Director to act as their commander and ensure that the N200,000 were extorted from the tipper drivers and remitted to him privately.
Unekwe lamented that so far ARTMA officials have forcefully extorted N200,000 each from 8 tipper drivers in the area; emphasizing that the ARTMA officials don't accept cash transfers but insist on physical cash.
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