NARTO, tanker drivers fault Lagos quit order

Few days after the expiration of the quit order given to tanker drivers by the Lagos State government, the National Union of Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD) has faulted the directive.

However, The Guardian investigations revealed that the tanker drivers have complied with the directive, as the ever-busy Apapa-Oshodi Expressway now has free flow of traffic.

The PTD President, Salimon Oladiti, stated that the negative multiplier effect of the directive might have grave consequences on the economy.

“The implication of the quit order to truck owners/drivers will have devastating effect on the nation’s economy,” he told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

Oladiti, who was represented by his spokesperson, Abdulkadir Garba, said the drivers were ready to comply with the order.

He, however, said it would not be easy to return the trucks to Lagos to lift fuel after being chased out hurriedly.

The president said the union had met with the National Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO) and directed all its members to comply with the 48-hour ultimatum by the state government.

He said that more than 6,000 trucks thronged Lagos to load fuel based on the information by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation that it had 1.2 billion litres of fuel in stock.

The PTD president said the union discovered that only six fuel depots with 400 litres capacity of the 56 depots in Lagos had the product which resulted in the gridlocks.

Now that we have obeyed the order and the truck are moving out of Lagos back to their different destinations without lifting products it will take time to persuade them to go back to Lagos.

“This is because of the losses they have incurred which were as a result of uncertainty, the tanker owners and the drivers will be wary of taking another risk to come to Lagos even if there is fuel,’’ he said

The Secretary, Lagos Zone of PTD, Tokunboh Korodo, had noted that the tanker drivers did not deliberately determine to congest the road, occasioned by the recent shortage of petroleum products at the depots.

He said it was not easy for the tankers to lift fuel, so they had to queue and follow protocol before lifting fuel to various part of the country.