PHOTOS: Bakers protest in Lagos over multiple levies by state agencies

Lagos bakers, under the aegis of the Premium Breadmakers Association of Nigeria (PBAN), have embarked on a protest over multiple levies and regulations by different agencies and ministries of the state government.

The association had on December 7 cited instances of undue exploitation and inhumane oppression by various ministries and agencies of the Lagos government.

“Multi-agency regulation is now an albatross to our businesses in Lagos State as Ministry of The Environment, LASEPA, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Transport (State Carriage), Lagos State Safety Commission (LSC), daily toll in streets and major roads by LGAs/LCDAs thugs, LGA Environment department, VIO, LASTMA etc are what we contend with daily in Lagos with their negative impact on our member bakeries,” the association had said.

Buttressing the association’s position at the Lagos House of Assembly Complex, Emmanuel Onuorah, president of PBAN, said the protest is essentially to register their complaints to the representatives of the people at the state house of assembly.

He said he expected the protest to elicit a reaction from Mudashiru Obasa, speaker of the Lagos house of assembly, since their efforts to reach Babajide Sanwo-Olu, governor of Lagos, have been futile.

Onuorah appealed to the state government to establish or make provision for a single regulator so as to ease business for the bakers.

“We are staging a peaceful protest to the state house of assembly to complain to the government how uneasy it is for us to do business in Lagos state,” he said.

“We wrote to the state governor, nobody has answered us, so we are taking our complaints to the representatives of the people – the Lagos state house of assembly.

“In Lagos state, we have about 13 to 14 ministries and agencies that are seemingly regulating bakers. How much do we make on bread?

“You have the Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Transportation (state carriage), LASEMA, LASTMA, VIO, state ministry of health, local government. When our drivers are moving on the way, touts will stop them in the name of revenue generation and beat them up. The police are not even helping matters.

“The essence of this protest is to make the government come out and let us know. We are not saying we are not going to pay the rate, of course we pay our LIRS. We want a single regulator in Lagos state.

“We want to know where we belong to in this state, we can’t be doing business and be putting money in the purse of the state government and our members are suffering.

“What we are demanding is that the state government must let us know how many agencies. We want a single regulator in this state as it’s done elsewhere.”

Onuorah said though the bakers’ association is not giving any ultimatum to the government, it is not hesitant on going extra lengths, like increasing the prices of bread, to make their complaints known to the government.

“We don’t give ultimatum, we are going to the state of assembly and we are hoping that the speaker will listen to us since the governor has not listened to us. What we will do is in our mind. If they don’t answer us in record time, we’re going to do something more than this,” he said.

“Talking about the increase in the price of bread, that is subjective. Even for us as Nigerians, we have brothers and sisters in the society but if its becomes inevitable that this will lead to increase in premium bread, so be it.”