A recent ultimatum issued by the ‘Lagos State Council Group of Elders’ of the National Union of Road Transport Workers that the national body of the union should withdraw the suspension of its Lagos State Chairman, Musiliu Akinsanya, has raised apprehension of another season of violence in Lagos. There has been rancour in the commercial transportation sector of the state in the past few weeks, but Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu and the police must strengthen and sustain pre-emptive measures lest it degenerates to violence.

Already, tension is palpable at parks, garages and bus stops. Beneath the seeming calm, a murderous rivalry is brewing among the transport union factions over the right to collect fees, dues and levies. Lagos can ill-afford another outbreak of violence in view of the security challenges already threatening lives and property in Nigeria’s commercial capital.

The crisis engulfing the NURTW in Lagos blew open in February when the state Chairman, Tricycle Owners and Operators Association of Nigeria, Azeez Abiola, alleged that he and his executive council members were attacked by Akinsanya’s men. Abiola said since the Tajudeen Baruwa-led NURTW national executive in Abuja appointed him as TOOAN chairman in Lagos in February, apparently against Akinsanya’s wish, relations between the two groups had degenerated.

Subsequently, the national body queried Akinsanya, accusing him “of intimidation, harassment and assault on Abiola.” It ordered him to surrender TOOAN assets in the state to Abiola. When Akinsanya refused, the national body suspended him indefinitely in March. Miffed, Akinsanya, aka MC Oluomo, thereafter withdrew the chapter from the NURTW the same day. He asked the state government to consider its White Paper decision on Transport Union activities dealing with the management of garages and motor parks during a crisis.

With alacrity, the Sanwo-Olu government acceded to Akinsanya’s request. It is strange that a state government would ‘obediently’ toe the line of an individual whose union is notorious for violence and extortion. But all along, Akinsanya has been influential in Lagos, despite the lawless ways of the NURTW at garages, parks and bus stops.

But notwithstanding Akinsanya’s pullout from the NURTW, it is still business as usual in Lagos parks and on its roads. This calls to question the ‘influence’ that a non-state actor like Akinsanya wields; many Lagosians allege that the government cannot control him because of his known closeness to top state and political figures, a claim the government hotly denies. Union enforcers and thugs are also hired and deployed for elections by politicians throughout the South-West.

It is scandalous that Lagos State continues to tolerate the extortion, violence and disorderliness of the NURTW on the roads. Its thuggish agents collect dues by force from drivers, tricycles and commercial motorcycles, even from non-NURTW members. Sanwo-Olu and his officials cannot be loudly repeating the Lagos ‘megacity’ aspiration while tolerating the atrocious operations of the unions. Other megacities like Cairo and Johannesburg do not. Lagos should implement its transportation master plan quickly.

A 2021 report by the International Centre for Investigative Reporting estimates that the Lagos chapter of the NURTW generates about N123.08 billion annually from toll collections. This sum is the annual budgets of Nasarawa, Niger and Yobe states put together. A 2016 BBC documentary aptly captured and projected the menace of toll collection from commercial motorcycles, the rickety mini-buses, ‘danfos’ and traders at parks by NURTW enforcers to the world. Union leaders now openly flaunt their wealth.

Unwittingly, Lagos has created an army of able-bodied men who shun normal work but revel in being union toll collectors; some moonlight as pickpockets, armed robbers and rapists at night, while harassing and forcibly extorting dues from motorists during the day. They also extort money from shop owners and traders. Many are recruited as political thugs during elections. Sanwo-Olu and the Commissioner of Police, Abiodun Alabi, should clamp down on these nefarious activities.

It is an open fact that the leaders of the union operate through violence. Many cases are still fresh in mind, including the assassination of then-NURTW state chairman, Saula Saka, in 2008. There was also the 2017 brutal murder of NURTW strongman in Oshodi, Rasaq ‘Hamburger’ Bello, during party local council primaries. The violent takeover by factional transport unions in Oyo and Osun and the ensuing bloodbath are also fresh.

Since the renewed crisis began, aggrieved NURTW and TOOAN factions have threatened state-wide protests but backtracked after the heavy deployment of security agents at planned protest locations. That is a temporary, reactive step. The government cannot deploy police permanently in the garages. Therefore, it must find a better and lasting solution to the excesses of the NURTW.

Other workers unions’ operatives do not take over the roads or offices in large numbers to collect members’ check-off dues. It is wrong for NURTW members to be doing so. Sanwo-Olu should use the opportunity of the suspension of NURTW for genuine reform of the transportation sector through cutting edge technology that will eliminate the physical collection of tolls at parks and bus stops. The state will remit the agreed NURTW portion to it. Drivers and conductors should be registered and their data captured digitally.

The ban on the sale of alcohol, hard drugs, touting, among others at parks and garages should be enforced. Extortion should stop. By law, being a member of the union is not compulsory and so no commercial driver should be coerced by NURTW. Security agents who are involved in the protection racket must be exposed and severely punished.

Security surveillance, monitoring and deployment across the state should not be relaxed. Alabi and his officers should not be caught unawares. Intelligence and undercover operations, and 24-hour patrols are recommended. Urgently, drones and IT tools should be deployed. NURTW leaders have to be put under surveillance. Part of the tolls generated should be used to develop garages to modern standards. The current crisis is an opportunity to evict violent unions permanently from garages, parks and bus stops. Sanwo-Olu should not fail.

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