Keke NAPEP operators allege extortion
They say Keke should leave the highways. Is this a highway? This is not highway. You see Civil Defense tearing Keke tyre with knife. We are the people that voted for this government, but they make sure that we are restless, we suffer.. It is like they are punishing us why did we vote for Goodluck,” lamented tricycle riders’ unionist, Augustine Agho Ape, angry about the renewed crackdown on tricycles operation in Abuja.
The tricycles were introduced as poverty alleviation measure under the National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP) to engage part of Nigeria’s unemployed youths.
But the poverty alleviation tricycles known as Keke NAPEP in local parlance are fast becoming poverty-creating as the tricycles are being impounded by a Special Task Force set up by the government.
Tricycle riders join the saturated labour market almost every day. Knowing no other work by which they can earn a living, they end up living off hand-outs from friends. One of them is Muhammed Sani, He said that he would have been thrown into a prison van if he had waited. He pulled off the officer trying to pull him into it.
“My tricycle was confiscated about four weeks ago. It was near Jabi Primary School. They collected my tricycle without giving any reason. Since it was taken from me, I have been idle without any work to earn money. I only rely on goodwill from friends and associates to survive. I don’t have any other vocation beside this,” he said.
But some are lucky to get back their tricycles after being impounded by the Task Force. But that is not without a price that seems to be turning the task of keeping away keke NAPEP into a business of its own.
A “Keke NAPEP” rider, Habeeb Idris, narrated how a task force made N8,000 off him on Thursday “We were at the primary school waiting to take passengers. They just came and entered our tricycles. We even thought they were passengers. They said they had caught us. We asked what their reason was. They said they were from the environmental protection agency. Then they took the “Keke” away. We went to VIO office. They told us to go to Area 3. From Area 3, they asked us to go to Area 1. Later they hid the Keke so that we couldn’t find it. Then they said we must give them N20,000. We bargain with them. They took N8,000 from me without giving me receipt and released my “keke” to me.
The following day a team of policemen, without the immigration, army, prison service and other officials making up the Task Force decided to make quick money on three tricycle riders. One of the riders, Muhammed Shetima said the policemen refused to take them to station when they asked to be taken there so that they can be charged for the offence they had committed.
“We were at the U-turn at Arab. Immediately after we took the U-turn, policemen came in their van and entered our “kekes”. They then took us to the police container near Berger Junction. We were three. They asked us to pay N5,000 each. It was with difficulty that they accepted our pleas to pay N2, 000 each. Two of us paid and left the third one there because he didn’t have the money to pay them. Then they said they would continue to arrest us because we had been barred from taking the route,” Shettima said.
But the abuse of power is not limited to extortion. It includes physical assault, according Sani Isa, who witnessed the work of the task force.
“I was just telling my friend that the problem we have is because we don’t make use of the media, if something is done to us we don’t complain on the media. That is the only thing I said, he (the senior Civil defense officer among them) just sent people to take me to him. On getting there, he slapped me severally, and dared me to do what I can do,” he said.
However, Abuja Directorate of Road Traffic believes the allegations are unfounded.
The directorate’s Public Relations Officer, Mr KK Iloduba, said extortion is not possible because the Task Force is made up of various military and para-military organizations.
“The Task Force is a multifaceted task force set up by the minister of FCT. It has in its team the Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps, Nigerian Prisons, Nigerian Immigration, the Nigeria Police, the army and of course the VIO which is the background of every one of them. I must be sincere with you the allegation of extorting money from them does not carry air. It is not possible. They are all out to muddle the image of the task force. And it will not work.
“Keke NAPEP was brought into the system to enhance movement. From day one, we had agreement with their leaders. We meet with them all the time. But there is a lacuna between the leadership and the people they are leading.
“The Task Force has no business with you if you are not neck-deep in violation,” he said.
The Chairman of Keke NAPEP riders, Arab branch, Mukhtar Hamza, said the government should look into their problem as some of them are into tricycle transportation business as a last resort. He said he holds a HND in mechanical engineering, but has never worked for government.
The more tricycles impounded, the sources of livelihood is likely to be lost among the poor.