Human and vehicular movements were halted for hours on Tran-Saharan- highway in Abakaliki, the capital of Ebonyi State on Friday, when tricycle operators protested alleged extortion and multiple taxation. The Tran-Saharan highway connects Taraba and Cameroon.

The tricycle operators In their thousands also blocked other adjoining roads and streets that link the highway. They blocked the highway and the adjoining roads with their tricycles. They also protested new registration of their tricycles as introduced by their leadership and the state government.

According to them, they were being made to pay for what they had done before as registration. The situation attracted heavy presence of security agencies including police and army. One of the protesters, Moses Egede alleged that they spent over N10, 000 on taxes and extortion weekly

He lamented that every day; they are made to pay N500 as ticket fees apart from various amounts they pay to various task forces that always stop them on various roads and junctions.

?We are spending a lot on taxes and extortion by task forces and security agents. If you calculate what we spend weekly, you will discover that we spend over N10, 000 weekly. Another protester, Nwokpoku Abraham, said tricycle operators were being treated as if they were no longer part of the state.

He alleged that they were paying N150 as ticket fee, which was increased to N200, N300 and N500, describing it as unacceptable. He accused the chairman of tricycle operators in the state, Uguru Nwabueze of promoting the multiple taxation in their union and imposing registration of new members.

But Uguru denied the allegations. He told Saturday Sun that there was no database for tricycle operators in the state until emerged and resolved to create a database to checkmate crimes often committed using tricycles. (Saturday Sun)

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