One of the road transport workers’ unions in Delta State, God’s Own Commercial Vehicles Drivers Association, has implored Governor Ifeanyi Okowa to put a stop to sales of complete emblems to town service vehicles.
Members of the association made the appeal in a chat with journalists on Wednesday in Warri, Delta State.
Speaking with journalists, chairman of the association, Peter Igho, said the complete emblem sticker, which is being sold between N18,000 and N25,000, was previously banned by the former governor of Delta State, Chief James Ibori.
According to him, the mandatory sales of the stickers to town service vehicles had become an unbearable burden, as it is not their duty to purchase the sticker.
He, therefore, called on the administration of Governor Okowa to ask the contractor in charge of the sales of the emblems, headed by Mr Kenneth George, to stop forthwith to avert crisis.
“This thing is too much on us, so we are begging the state government to withdraw the sticker; we cannot buy it, even if it’s brought down to N1,000, we can’t buy it.
“We have been battling this thing for some time now. When they wanted to impose it on us last year, we fought against it and it was stopped,” he said.
A member of the association, Mr. Raphael Ota, also lamented how minibus drivers are being forced and harassed and sometimes beaten by some people to buy the stickers.
“When we go to some of these local governments, you will see guys with planks harassing us to buy the sticker and pay some fees.
“Last Monday, we were stopped at the local government secretariat and they asked us to buy the stickers, they even took some of our buses to their offices.
“We are buying tickets at every junction in Uvwie and Warri South local government areas already, yet the way these boys come out, ask you to pay the N20,000 for emblem stickers else they will impound your buses is alarming,” he lamented.
Meanwhile, when contacted, Kenneth George, the sole contractor in charge of the complete emblem sticker sale, told Tribune Online that the policy cannot change having been in existence for long.
He said notice of the commencement of the stickers was announced on radio and published on newspapers for the awareness of all the transport unions to inform their members, adding that some of the chairmen of the unions even
pleaded for extension of the deadline to purchase the sticker.
George, who declined to state the official amount of the cost of the sticker, wondered why the same people who pleaded for more time were the same people who went to cry to the media.
and then