Hundreds of travellers returning from the Yuletide holidays were stranded on the East-West highway yesterday morning, following a fracas between truckers and policemen, over an alleged ‘checkpoint tax’ hike by law enforcement officers.
The incident occurred at Kalama Junction, close to the Kaiama Bridge over River Niger, around 6:45 am.
It was gathered that trouble broke out when truckers conveying cows and other livestock from the North refused to meet the policemen’s demand for a higher rate.
Sources said the policemen, who usually got between N500 and N2,000 per truck, insisted on a new higher rate, which the truckers refused to pay.
“The drivers said they had spent all their money at the checkpoints in Delta/Bayela axis of the highway. But the policemen, in anger, smashed the windscreens and inflicted other damages on several trucks.
“This angered the truck drivers, particularly two members, who said they were on their first trips with new trucks, which the police destroyed,” a commercial bus driver, who witnessed the incident, said.
Sensing that they had bitten more than they could chew, the recalcitrant policemen fled the scene, leaving commuters and commercial motorists to face the wrath of the truckers.
The irritated truckers took over the road and parked the damaged trucks astride it. Their colleagues also used their trucks to barricade the road in solidarity.
The incident caused kilometres-long gridlock, extending towards the Kaiama Bridge, with hundreds of road users, including military men, waiting endlessly for the issue to be resolved.
But what could have been a bloody encounter between the drivers and angry road users was averted by the quick intervention of about a dozen military men, who were also trapped in the gridlock.
The military men negotiated peace between the drivers and the angry commuters, who felt the truckers should not make them scapegoats in their faceoff with the police.
Free flow of traffic resumed hours later, following the intervention.