MORE facts have emerged as to what led to the recent clashes between security agents and hoodlums that rocked the Tin-Can Island Port area of Apapa, two weeks ago.
It was gathered that both parties tried to outwit each other over the control of the extortion points along the port access roads.
Confirming the development, a former president, National Association of Road Transport Owners, NARTO, Mr. Mohammed Inuwa, said the clash occurred while he was at a meeting in Abuja, adding that the information he got was that security agents and some members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers, NURTW, had a face-off over the control of extortion points along the port access roads.
Inuwa said: “I was not around when the crisis was on, I was at the Abuja National Executive Council meeting, it was when I got back that I was told there were clashes between security agents and hoodlums.
That is the information I got. Just the other day when I was plying the port access road, I counted 11 checkpoints, between Trebor roundabout and Abuja at Tin-Can first gate, manned by both security agents and other hoodlums.
“The traffic from the Mile 2 end of the Apapa-Oshodi Expressway is responsible for the clashes being experienced at the Tin-Can end of the port access roads.”
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Also corroborating Inuwa’s position, the President of the Association of Maritime Transport Owners, AMATO, Mr. Remi Ogunbgemi, said that he heard about the clash between security agents and hoodlums over the control of extortion points along the port access roads.
Ogunbgemi said: “I got similar information and you know that most of the challenges we have been having are as a result of the love for money. So, it is not a surprise to me that such things happen because even the security operatives, who ought to be upright in their dealings, are deeply involved in the open collection of money.
“They are just here for their interest, they are not interested in how there can be sanity and orderliness.”
(Vanguard)
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