Brave Dickson
Commercial drivers in Rivers State have given the state government a 4-day ultimatum to produce the killer of their colleague or face a total shutdown of vehicular services.
The ultimatum came as a result of the killing of a commercial bus driver by men of the state Taskforce on Street Trading and Illegal Motor Parks.
The slain driver, Simon was said to have parked his bus somewhere around Rumuigbo in Port Harcourt which the taskforce had considered to be illegal parking on Sunday.
While the men of the taskforce were accosting the driver, a fight ensued leading to the death of the driver.
The news of the driver’s death sparked a protest by his colleagues in the transport sector on Monday.
When contacted, the Chairman of the Urban Driver Welfare Association, Rivers State, Lekia Isaac told our correspondent that the state government is given from Tuesday to Friday March 17 to comply with three of the union’s demands:
1) That the state government must provide the killer taskforce for immediate prosecution.
2) That the family of the victim be adequately compensated to ease the pain of losing a breadwinner.
3) That taskforce be scrapped for not being properly constituted nor well monitored by its management.
The union chairman also threatened that commercial drivers in the state will withdraw their services if the three demands are not met on or before the date of the ultimatum.
It would be recalled that a personnel of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps who was attached to same taskforce had in 2021 killed one commercial bus driver, Christian Otene over the issue of wrong parking.
