Political Foes Behind Commercial Drivers’ Protest In Cross River — Commissioner

The Cross River State Ministry of Transport has reacted to Thursday’s protest staged by taxi drivers in Calabar metropolis, alleging that the protest was the handiwork of political enemies, who were eager to stop the ongoing reforms in the state’s transportation sector.

The Commissioner for Transport, Pastor Ekpeyong Ene Cobham, made the claim while reacting to the development in a telephone conversation with LEADERSHIP at the weekend.

Cobham stated that his team had been working round the clock to get many abnormalities, which range from illegal roadside picking of passengers to touting, multiple ticketing and illegal taskforce exploiting motorists within and outside the Calabar metropolis.

While describing the drivers’ protest as premeditated and sponsored by political foes, who had fallen out of favour due to ongoing reforms in the sector, saying: “I have dislodged the loading base of touts, because we need to put an end to touting, to end illegality.

“I shall restore sanity in the transport sector. I am going to shut down all illegal motor parks in Calabar metropolis.

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“We will introduce coding whereby every commercial vehicle would be tagged with a number to checkmate act of criminality in the metropolis.

“From January next year, we will not accept off-colour taxicabs and buses because we see them as fueling activities of criminals in the metropolis.

“We are going to conduct a bio-data for commercial vehicles. I am in support of reduction of daily tolls to impact on levies of market women because they too assisted in the installation of Senator Bassey Otu administration,” he said.

Mini-bus drivers had on Thursday staged a protest against what they called as extortion by officials of the state government for “wrong parking”.

In a bid to express thier displeasure, the commercial bus drivers barricaded parts of Murtala Mohammed highway causing gridlock, where vehicular movement were halted for some hours, saying it was the only way to express their grievance against alleged extortion of N45,000 from them by officials of the state government.