• Security agencies impound three trucks, slam drivers 

Protest by a truck driver alleging extortion has brought traffic to a standstill on the crucial Lagos/Ibadan Expressway. The driver, The Guardian gathered, blocked the highway at the Ogere axis, with others joining in solidarity, creating a total paralysis on both carriageways.
 
It was alleged that the protest began when a truck driver claimed that officials of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) seized his vehicle’s battery.
 
In response, he obstructed all lanes on the Ibadan-bound side of the expressway.  Fellow truck drivers joined the demonstration, extending the blockade to the Lagos-bound lanes, causing a full gridlock.  Attempts by Police and Nigerian Army personnel to intervene and clear the obstruction were reportedly thwarted by the crowd.
 
Meanwhile, security agencies impounded three trucks for wrong parking on the Ogere/Sapade axis of the road. They also decried the rowdy and disorderly attitude of articulated vehicle drivers, especially in the night, along the Ogere/Sapade corridor.
  
The Ogere Division Task Force, made up of Ogun State Traffic Compliance and Enforcement Agency (TRACE), the army,  the police and transport unions, noted the recurring traffic challenge caused by the drivers despite having access to multiple trailer parks, both private and government-owned, resulting in obstruction, traffic gridlocks, avoidable road crashes and narrowing of the corridor.
 
Spokesperson for TRACE, Commodore Babatunde Akinbiyi, in a statement, lamented that a driver of an apprehended truck reported back at the Task Force office about 7.00am, with a threat to secure his truck.
 
 According to him, the driver exhibited high-handedness, irrational and uncompromising disposition, threatening to cause chaos if he wasn’t attended to immediately, against the due process.
 
 “Unfortunately, he left in annoyance and went on to instigate his fellow truck drivers, an act intended to cause mayhem, obstruction, delay in travel time, and expose road users to danger, along the Ogere/Sapade road, inadvertently embarrassing the state government,” she said.
 
Akinbiyi noted that orderliness was, however, restored through the intervention of the Ogun State Commissioner of Police,  Lanre Ogunnowo, the Seriki Hausawa of Ogere and the Acting TRACE Commander General/CEO, Omonayajo Elias, who  ordered the release of the earlier apprehended trucks, which were handed over to the Seriki Hausawa and other transport union representatives to douse the tension along the axis.
 
Meanwhile TRACE reiterates its commitment to strict compliance with traffic rules and regulations, especially as the ember months peak, while charging fleet operators and articulated vehicle drivers to uphold basic safety standards that guarantee the safety of lives and property in their operational methodology.