‘Lagos NURTW generates N123bn annually’
THE above was the subtitle of the last paragraph of the third piece last week, which was a report of how a transport workers union inside Lagos taxes their members to generate revenue for some unknown powers. And so there is a correlation between the oppression of that oppressed class in Lagos and the present darkness that can trigger a revolt of “the wretched of the earth”. Read on:
“On July 22… 2021 the International Centre for Investigative Report (ICIR) revealed in a major report that the Lagos chapter of the National Union of Road Transport Workers, (NURTW) locally tagged ‘agberos’ generates about N123.08bn annually, which could service the annual budgets of Nasarawa, Niger, and Yobe states put together. The data released on Thursday July 22, showed that the money was realised through levies on passenger vehicles, motorcycles and tricycles.
According to the reliable report, other sources of income not included in the report were money levied on hawkers, articulated vehicles, and persons who visited certain markets to buy goods. The report recorded a total of 75,000 buses; 50,000 tricycles; and 37,000 motorcycles in Lagos.
It showed that on a daily basis, N3, 000, N600, and N1,800 were levied on buses, motorcycles, and tricycles respectively. These levies sum up to N82.1bn for buses; N8.1bn for motorcycles; and N32.9bn for tricycles yearly; making a total of N123.078bn yearly…
Speaking on how the union could generate such money, a close associate of the NURTW who spoke to ICIR correspondent said, “It is a highly connected and well-organised syndicate…Take Idumota, for example; some ‘agberos’ work in the office, others work on the streets; some work in the morning, some are constantly on afternoon shifts…
“Some also have days that they work. Although, there is a fixed price, the rule of the game is that the ‘agberos’charge the drivers based on the amount they charge the passengers.”
He added that in Idumota, there were over seven chairmen who get deliveries from the boys that work on the streets. “The boys have delivery targets, which is the reason they act rudely to drivers and passengers alike,” he added. He narrated further that to work with them, one must know one NURTW chairman or another renowned hoodlum on the street. The source mentioned the case of a young man who went to Badagry to get diabolic fortifications so that he could be effective on the job.
A passenger, Emmanuel Francis, expressed concerns over the activities of NURTW members. He urged the Federal Government to regulate their activities. When contacted by ICIR, a spokesperson for the Lagos Internal Revenue Service, (LIRS) Monsurat Amasa, said she could not comment on the amount the NURTW generates, but added that as a part of the informal sector, the body pays taxes to the government.
‘The Abuja multiple taxation on the poor too’
Meanwhile, the same investigative report organ also revealed ‘how payment of multiple taxes has been frustrating ‘okada’ riders in Abuja’, Nigeria’s capital. Part of the reports’ fact file:
“DANIEL Chogwu, 33, had moved to the Federal Capital City, Abuja from Kogi State in 2014 in search of a paying job with his high school certificate. Unable to earn a pay after being owed three months’ salary working as a security guard for a firm in Abuja, he started looking for his next best option.
Several of his friends who were commercial motorcyclists advised him to try Okada riding temporarily till he finds a better job. Fast forward to 2020, Daniel works from 5 a.m. to 6 p.m., six days in a week as a full-time commercial motorcyclist plying the Nyanya – Mararaba axis. On a good day, he says he makes about ₦2,000 daily but on some other days, he comes home with as low as ₦800. Because of his meagre earnings from the “Okada” business, he spends frugally.
But no matter how small his daily income is, he is charged an average of ₦250 on taxes weekly, which he pays to the Abuja Municipal Area Council, AMAC.
If he fails to pay the levy of ₦50 daily before 2 p.m., his motorcycle would be confiscated and he would have to pay ₦1,500 to get it back. “Since I started this business in 2014, I’ve been buying tickets and paying one tax or another but I don’t know why we are paying because it has not benefited me in any way. All they [the tax collectors] are after is to collect money from us, sometimes with support from the police, and they would seize our motorcycles if we don’t pay,” he said angrily (ICIR)
Daniel’s experience is not different from the plight of commercial motorcyclists operating in satellite towns and rural areas in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) whose motorcycling taxi business is stifled as a result of paying multiple taxes and levies enforced by transport unions and government agencies. This is happening in Nigeria’s capital where a policy on social protection policy at a perilous time such as this is being implemented.
Nigeria is generally believed to be the second-largest market for commercial motorcycling in Africa, providing an alternative means of employment for the 231,544 unemployed residents of the FCT according to a 2018 data published by National Bureau of Statistics, NBS. But this group of workers pays more in tax than their counterparts who earn better income.
Specifically, for authenticity of this intelligence, the ICIR operative visited five locations in Nyanya where tax agents of the Abuja Municipal Area Council, AMAC operate. As early as 8:00 am, they are out issuing ticket and collecting daily levies from commercial motorcyclists. Mopol Junction, Redeemed Junction and Nyanya market are some of the popular routes commercial motorcyclists within Nyanya axis ply daily and tax agents are stationed at various spots to collect the stipulated ₦50 every weekday from Monday to Friday. Though the activities of motorcyclists are not allowed within Abuja’s city centre, they operate within the suburbs providing an alternative means of transport for ease of movement in areas where they are unrestricted. Curiously checks have also revealed that at Nyanya Phase 4, policemen usually accompany the officials of AMAC to collect taxes from commercial motorcyclists plying the route. In Lugbe, the trend is the same except that there are three different bodies that collect levies from commercial motorcyclists namely Motorcycle Transport Union of Nigeria (MTUN), Amalgamated Commercial Motorcycle and Tricycle, Owners, Repairers and Riders Association of Nigeria (ACOMORAN) and Federal Capital Territory Authority, FCTA.
The levy ticket for “Okada” riders in Lugbe is accompanied with a printed receipt to acknowledge payment made by a commercial motorcyclist usually from Monday to Saturday every week. In his early fifties, James Madaki, also captured in the scoop, is a tickets agent who rarely smiles while working for AMAC’s motorcycle revenue collection office in Nyanya. He struggles to wake up by 5 am daily and drags himself to the road, his job is to sell tickets to motorcyclists on AMAC’s behalf for a commission. James is not on the payroll of AMAC, if he does not go to the road to sell tickets then he will be broke. For every ticket he sells he earns a commission of ₦10, he acknowledges that this amount is small but it is better than being idle. If he hits the road very early, he could smile home with ₦1,200 for the day, which he says doesn’t happen often. “I always wake up very early so I can sell these tickets and get my money for the day. This job is very demanding because I have to be on the lookout for “Okada” riders and persuade them to buy from me so I can eat and government can eat,” he said.
Let’s not get it twisted, the ICIR investigative reports on Lagos and Abuja, Nigeria’s two political and economic capitals, should have elicited responses from the country’s federal and state legislatures. Reason: the transport workers state and non-state actors have been exploiting now constitute ‘the wretched of the earth’ whose revolt can’t be stopped in the country. The head of a cabal that helps Lagos State government, its principalities and powers to coordinate exploitation of these riders, drivers and the transport owners (from motorbike through tricycles to buses) is well known in Lagos and now in Nigeria. He is untouchable. He is quite powerful, influential and deadly. Even the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) that has never waded into oppression of these oppressed workers within the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) for instance cannot control the head of the cabal, which even the governor cannot control. The powerful man was once banned by a national body of his industrial union for his recklessness and lawlessness but the Lagos state government created another outfit for the untouchable guy who appears to have moved to Abuja where he has been curiously elevated. In Abuja, too the oppression the ICIR diligently reported since 2021 hasn’t stopped.
And so here is the thing, let the complicit and corrupt state officials, including representatives of the people in various assemblies who appear deaf to the consequences of their extortion of the road transport workers and their poor counterparts everywhere note this in Lagos and Abuja: when the wretched of the earth who are now saying they can no longer breathe revolt nationwide sooner than later, they should not blame unknown enemies of state. Let all the collectors of illicit levies, let all police checkpoint collectors on the roads especially in Lagos note this from the oracles: there is a time for everything and so this is a time to stop extorting the poor road transport workers and users who buy expensive PMS (fuel) to work for them. Let the state oppressors know that there are no advocates and civil society workers to cry out for the poor who can no longer breathe. Let the mockers of the poor even in our National Assembly, I mean those who derisively noted, the other day in the chambers of the Assembly ‘…ehhh, let the poor breathe’ note this from Frantz Fanon:
‘The unpreparedness of the educated classes, the lack of practical links between them and the mass of the people, their laziness, and, let it be said, their cowardice at the decisive moment of the struggle will give rise to tragic mishaps’.
Finally, I would like to appeal to our leaders to review literature on the 2010-2011’Arab Spring’ its causes and consequences, this week. They need to reflect on it before they think trough the next line of blame game. The article from Britanica will help them to reset their minds about consequences of neglecting the poor in a period of hardship.
Oloja is former editor of The Guardian newspaper and his column, Inside Stuff, runs on the back page of the newspaper on Sundays. The column appears on News Point Nigeria newspaper on Mondays.