LASU Crisis: Students, Shuttle Operators, NURTW Clash Over Levies
Activities
on the Lagos-Badagry Expressway were yesterday halted for hours after students
of the Lagos State University, LASU and the shuttle operators clashed with
members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers, NURTW and the Road
Transport Employers Association of Nigeria, RTEAN, at the Iyana-Iba motor park
over increase in loading levies.
LASU It was learned that the ever busy road
was blocked while the clash lasted. It was gathered that the clash started at
about 11 am after the members of the Union informed the shuttle operators that
the loading levies had been increased from N200 to N1, 000 and that the
increment took immediate effect.
Sources
said the shuttle operators plying LASU-Isheri and Lagos-Badagry expressway used
to pay their weekly levies to the Students Union Government, SUG, on Tuesdays
and another N200 to the NURTW and RTEAN for every trip.
According
to reports, the transport unions kept the SUG in the dark over the planned
increment. The SUG normally would have directed the shuttle operators to comply
with the development.
Worried
by the increment, it was learned that the operators informed the students who
visited the motor park to plead with the unions to shelve the planned
increment.
But on
arrival at the park, one of the students identified simply as Shola said the
union members attacked the students with machete and broken bottles. He said
that this infuriated the students who directed the shuttle operators not to pay
the new levy.
In
retaliation, the Unions damaged over eight shuttle buses that joined the SUG to
kick against the planned increment.
It was
learned that the students blocked the road in a bid to recover their buses from
the union and press home their demands.
Ambode,VC,
SUG president wade in
Another
student, who pleaded anonimity narrated that normalcy returned after the state
governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Olanrewaju Fagbohun and
officers from the Ojo Police Station and the SUG President, Adeyemi Onikoro
waded into the crisis. Sources close to the office of the governor, said that a
top official from the governor’s office called the leadership of the transport
unions, directing that the issue be resolved immediately.
Few
minutes after normalcy returned, a meeting was held at the office of the
Divisional Police Officer of the Ojo division where all the parties were asked
to maintain status quo until Thursday when they would be having another meeting
to resolve the issue.
The
reason for scheduling the meeting for Thursday, a SUG official told Vanguard
was because the Student union would be conducting their election.
Source:
vanguardngr
LASU Crisis: Students, Shuttle Operators, NURTW Clash Over Levies
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