By Tosin Adesile

It was gathered that the Governor of Ondo State, Rotimi Akeredolu had recently placed a ticket fee tax of three hundred naira on all taxi owners and advised the National Union of Road transport workers,(NURTW) in Ondo State to remit such to the government.

The NURTW chairman, Jacob Adebo in the State popularly known as Idajo summoned the members of the union and informed them that the ticket which used to be two hundred and fifty naira will now be Seven hundred per driver per day.

This led to outburst, protest and murmuring by members of road workers on how will they be able to afford such amount of money looking at the economy and poverty among the people.

The Chairman, Idajo who told taxi drivers not to bother themselves but should go ahead and increase minimum fare from fifty naira per passenger to 100 naira.

The increases led to outburst by passengers considering the fact that Ondo is a Civil service state and government is not even paying full salaries to their workers.

Youths had thronged the social media to complain the anomaly and this went viral particularly on twitter.

Sparklight News who paid a visit to NURTW office in Akure found out that the Chairman of the Union was foremly operating on 250 ticket from taxi drivers but due to government levy of 300 naira,he took advantage of the situation and added 150 to the existing 250 making 400 naira.

This means that 300 naira will go to Ondo State Government and 400 naira will go to association which is an unwise decision.

After an outburst by the taxi drivers, the State Government stepped in to address the situation

EARLIER STATE GOVERNMENT DIRECTIVES

Sparklight News reported that Rotimi Akeredolu,Ondo State Governor, has proscribed the activities of the National Union of Road Transport Workers, and the Road Transport Employers’ Association of Nigeria, following the leadership crisis of the two unions.

It was gathered that the order was not unconnected with the leadership crisis of the two unions and the recent increase in the transport fares across the state.

The Senior Special Assistant to the governor on Special Duties and Strategy, Doyin Odebowale, announced this Monday in Akure, the state capital.

Odebowale said the order was with immediate effect.

The governor’s aide directed the leadership of both the NURTW and the RTEAN to vacate motor parks across the 18 local government areas of the state and to stop collecting money from taxi drivers and other motorists.

Odebowale said: “He also directed all the taxi drivers to revert to the old fare of N50 per drop. He ordered that the new ticket should be purchased directly from the government.
Every attempt to make life difficult for the people would be restricted and the security agencies have been notified to effect timely arrest and prosecution of the defaulters,”.

NEW DIRECTIVES ON 9TH MARCH 2021

The State Government gave a fresh order suspending the activities of the Union and ordered all NURTW officials to vacate all parks with immediate effect. This decision does not go out well with them and the thug suspected to be working for the erstwhile chairman Idajo mobilized themselves in taxis and buses carrying cutlasses, axe, planks, daggers and some confidence marching from Adesida through ijomu inward oke ijebu to Ado garage today.

FURTHER INVESTIGATION

According to an official loyal to Idajo said the Government is issuing out all these directives to favour Idajo’s Vice Chairman whom the State is being sponsored to take over from Idajo.

The man said  Government suspended our activities because of greed and illiteracy of Idajo, our former Chairman. He said: “How can you add such amount of money to the existing one?,

 We advised him but he won’t listen, now see where we have all found ourselves”.

On whether the Government is planning to return Idajo’s Vice Chairman to take over the reins in the state is not clear as no clear action is coming from the Government.