Truckers Protest Rampant Port Extortion, Demand Reform and Defend ETO System

Truckers Protest Rampant Port Extortion, Demand Reform and Defend ETO System

A major protest erupted yesterday at the Lagos ports as aggrieved maritime truck drivers and truck owners marched from the Lilypond Truck Park in Ijora to the Apapa and Tin Can Island ports. Their demonstration was a response to widespread extortion and inefficiencies plaguing port operations.

The protesting truckers carried placards and chanted slogans, voicing their frustration over numerous illegal checkpoints and the black-market sale of electronic call-up (ETO) tickets—initially introduced by the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) to manage truck scheduling into ports.

According to findings, truck operators now pay between ₦250,000 and ₦400,000 for call-up slots—far above the official rate—while extortion fees at checkpoints range from ₦5,000 to ₦20,000.

“The extortion and racketeering have become unbearable. We want to appeal to the management of the NPA to please reduce the number of extortion checkpoints along the port corridors as truckers are losing a lot of proceeds to the activities of the people operating most of these checkpoints,” said Mohamed Sani Bala, Secretary General of the Association of Maritime Truck Owners (AMATO).

Placards bore messages such as “ETO call-up is working,” “No to policy summersault, Let ETO be,” and “MTDA supports ETO call-up against going back to Egypt”—a biblical metaphor rejecting a return to chaotic manual systems.

Truckers called on the government to adopt Electronic Tags (ETAG) and implement a robust truck scheduling system to prevent manipulation and ensure orderly access to port facilities.

Chairman of the Lagos State Trucks and Cargo Operators Committee (LASTCOC), Lukman Shittu, stated that calls to scrap the ETO system were coming from those who benefitted from past irregularities.

“People calling for a return to the old system are not representing real stakeholders. Those were the ones benefiting from the disorder,” he said.

Zangalo, a veteran trucker with over two decades of experience, echoed these concerns and cited operational inefficiencies at terminals like APMT and ENL as contributing to truck congestion. “If terminals like APMT or ENL are not operating efficiently, trucks can’t move. And TTP won’t release more trucks, leading to a backlog,” he said, stressing the need for better coordination.

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Afeez Alabi, Public Relations Officer of the Maritime Truck Drivers Association (MTDA), warned that reverting to the old manual system would be disastrous. “The digital system has brought transparency and order to truck movement in and out of the ports, exposing irregularities and significantly reducing traffic congestion,” Alabi said.

He also highlighted how corruption has tainted the process. Although the ETO system was originally introduced at ₦10,250, extortionists now resell the slots for over ₦120,000.

Despite these challenges, truckers stood firm in their defense of the e-call-up system, stressing that it had drastically eased traffic gridlock around the Apapa port corridor. They warned that abandoning it would erase years of progress in port decongestion and reform.