Hundreds of angry bus drivers on Friday, November 1, 2019, blocked the front of Imo government house, over extortion by different task forces on motorists.
Vanguard captured the protesters as they were marching in anger around the government House roundabout in Owerri. The bus drivers started gathering themselves all from different streets of the state capital.
Vanguard observed that some of them drove from Wethedral, Douglas, Mbaise Road, Okigwe road and Akwakuma as well as Amakohia to government house to register their grievances over the continued extortion in the name of task forces.
According to them, the number of task forces on the road have created too many troubles for them as they now spend over N3,000 in settling groups of task forces.
They also lamented that there were know marked bus stops on the road as to say exactly where they will stop to pick or drop passengers. Some of them claimed that they have suffered severally beaten by these groups of task forces wherever they fail to “settle them.” However, this protest is coming after a report by Vanguard on the number of task forces in Imo state.
According to some of the protesters, one Onyeuwa Timo, “This is very painful in Imo state, we don’t have any place to rest. Nobody to complain to the kind of maltreatment that we have suffered in the hands of these task forces people.”
Also, one of them who claimed to be a student and a father of two children, who goes with the name Samba said: “There is no peace for us the bus drivers. We have families and we need money to take care of them. Please I beg the government to please stop these men they are punishing us in Imo state.
“They come and force you to pay them and they also wait for you on the other road and ask you to pay again.”
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