Tipper drivers block Niger Bridge over ‘extortion’ by government agents

Tipper drivers in Onitsha, Anambra state, on Tuesday blocked the River Niger Bridge in protest against alleged extortion by some government agents.

According to NAN, efforts by a detachment of soldiers of the Nigerian Army to appeal to the protesting tipper drivers did not yield any positive result.

Onodugo Onochie, a representative of the Tipper Drivers Association in the state, said government agents, in different groups, extort the drivers everyday.

Onochie lamented that they are being extorted in Anambra noting that the roads from where they load the sand are dilapidated.

“So this morning, some of us who loaded at Asaba paid N2,700 they demanded from each tipper in a day and on getting to Onitsha end of the Niger bridge, precisely at Uga junction, adjacent to a military checkpoint, they also demanded that we pay again,” NAN quoted Onochie as saying.

 “Some boys stopped us and demanded that we should pay before we leave. They said that they distributed the documented information last year in December and January and I told them that we were not aware of that.

 “They then said we should pay N3,000 but when we offered N1,000, they said no and we had no other option than to block the road to end the saga once and for all.

 “It is not that we don’t want to pay but we want to know how much to pay daily or weekly as the case may be and not each time a tipper passes they collect N3,000 from the driver.”