By Uzor Odigbo
What started as mild protest from the wharf end of Apapa, Lagos for three days ago has become a full blown crisis Tuesday as protesters stopped every form of vehicler movement or transaction.
However an interesting part of the protest is that clearing agents took the opportunity to air their grievances especially against the Nigerian Customs.
The agents who gathered in groups told the people that agents had been oppressed for a longtime and this presents an opportunity for total overhaul of the system.
“For a longtime we have not been doing any serious work. You import your product, before you clear it; the Customs will make you to pay through your nose. After clearing your consignment it becomes another wahala to carry your products. See all the trucks on the queue. Before you enter the port, the army and police with port officials will connive and collect N200, 000 from you. Before you go in and come out you have spent N500, 000 just to settle people. Tell me what kind of wicked system is that,” one of the agents said while some other protests urged him on.
It was a chaotic situation today in front of Nnewi building as protesters carried green leaves and waved the Nigerian flag while calling for an end to police brutality and extortion.
The Customs agents on their own called for end to extortion and by the Customs and security agents. They said that things are worsening because there is so much corruption at the gateway to the nation’s economy and the governmentseem to be looking the other way because the people collecting the illegal money for trucks to enter the wharf are fronts mounted by people in high places.