On Monday, 6th February 2023, the Lagos State Parks and Garages (LASPG) said that the letter it wrote to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was to set the record straight and smoothen the transportation of materials for this year’s elections across the metropolis.
The secretary of the agency, Mr Olayiwola Lemboye, at a briefing on Sunday, said since the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) had been proscribed by the Lagos State government, it became necessary to notify the INEC leadership that LASPG was in charge of commercial road transport activities in the state.
Lemboye said: “You will recall that the crisis between the Lagos State council and the national body of the NURTW on the activities of the union necessitated the state council pulling out of the National body of NURTW.
“The state government later proscribed NURTW activities in the state on March 11, 2022 to forestall breakdown of law and order. The government subsequently, on April 7, announced the setting up of a 25-man ad-hoc committee to manage the operations of commercial road transport activities within parks and garages across the state.
“Since NURTW is not functioning in Lagos State and the LASPG has been saddled with the mantle of coordinating the activities of commercial road transportation workers, we, at Lagos State Parks and Garages, hereby find it exigent to put things in proper perspectives which necessitated our letter to the INEC. The essence is to ensure that the distribution of election materials for this year’s elections in Lagos State does not suffer any setback.
“Aside from the name change from NURTW to LASPG in Lagos State, we are still in control of day-to-day commercial road transport activities. Evidence of this can be seen in all parks and garages across the state.
“We are, therefore, using this medium to assure the leadership of INEC and the general public that the distribution of election materials will be handled professionally as it was being done in the past.”