Anambra to clamp down on touts extorting lorry, trailer drivers

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The Anambra State Government on Sunday said it had directed its Joint Security Taskforce to rid the state of touts extorting lorry and trailer drivers.  The state Commissioner for Information, Chief Tony Onyima, told the News Agency of Nigeria in Onitsha that the government could not tolerate the illegal activities of the touts on the roads.

Onyima expressed surprise that the touts had regrouped after being dislodged earlier in the year, promising that the government would move against them again.
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“Anambra is not such a state where anybody can just get on the road and harass drivers, especially lorry and trailer drivers, knowing that most of them come from other states.

“These drivers do not know who is who most of the time; the people doing this thing are touts that organised themselves; they are neither Local Government staff nor employees of the State Government,” he said.

Earlier, the Chairman of Nigeria Lorry Drivers’ Association (NILODA), Mr Uche Nebuwa, told NAN that the activities of touts on Federal roads in Anambra had been increasing hardship on its members.

Nebuwa said that his members are beaten up and their trucks seized for days for not paying such touts money on demand.

He said,”Coming from Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Edo, Delta along the Lagos-Ore-Benin-Asaba, you have no hitch; even if there is, it is just one produce check-point where you pay the approved due and collect a receipt.

“Likewise from Rivers to Imo, nobody occupies the Federal highways as if it is his father’s property.

“But getting into Anambra, the story is totally different with the myriad of clusters of touts on the highways, wielding big sticks and dangerous weapons at various intervals.

“While you are being punished for not paying through massive beating by the use of heavy sticks, others will be ransacking your vehicle and pilfering whatever they can.

“In extreme cases, lorry drivers are often forced to pay as much as N40,000 to these clusters of touts without receipts along the Federal highways in Anambra,” the chairman said.