The Chairman of Lagos State National Union of Road Transportation Workers (NURTW), Musiliu Ayinde Akinsanya popularly known as MC Oluomo has rolled out operational guidelines to members as Lagosians return to work on Monday.
Mr Oluomo in a statement to this newspaper on Saturday said it is not news that Coronavirus is no respecter of social status, age or gender. Hence, the need to be careful.
He appreciated all health workers and condoled the families of those who lost their lives in the pandemic.
Mr Oluomo appealed to his members to strictly follow the directives of the State and Federal governments, National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) in order to stop the avoidable spread of the virus.
The NURTW Lagos State Council, however, set up a Task Force Unit to arrest any driver/ Union member that violates its guidelines which are:
“The NURTW state Secretariat will operate at 60% staff capacity forthwith. The staff members that are to resume at the office will be duly communicated. The Secretariat will operate between 9 am to 3 pm daily. Only motor park chairmen and park attendants are allowed to resume at their respective motor parks, for now, this is aimed at reducing crowd at the motor parks.”
“Operational time is between 8 am to 7 pm daily, no excuse will be entertained from any driver caught operating after this time. All passengers MUST put on their face mask. Failure to use it, such passengers should not be allowed into their vehicles. Tricycle Owners and Operator’s Association of Nigeria “TOOAN” (Maruwa operators) are to abide by the Lagos state government’s directive of carrying two (2) passengers at a go.”
“Drivers and their bus conductors are to ensure the practice of social distancing by operating at 60% loading capacity”, he urged.
Good morning,
Please, make sure that the drivers and conductors are the appropriate people in the bus parks. People are now becoming vigilant on the road because of the rate of killings and kidnappings every week. The use of the face mask and maybe handgloves or sanitizer is a part measures of what it takes to be careful. But the downside is the creative criminals may use this opportunity to hide their faces to extort, steal or kidnap innocent passengers who tried hard to get their proper identies and study those who are claiming to be passengers before entering the vehicles stopped for pickups by the roadsides. It will be advisable to protect all passengers of every vehicle from the bus parks either by using certain points as bus parks (Both main park and some streets junctions as parks) or Using the main parks alone to pick passengers to their destinations directly without stopping to pick someone else on the road (though it will keep people stranded on the road also). All this should be adhere to curb out stubborn passengers and bus owners of the state. To add to your previous time schedule, please allow all transport workers get home and safe atleast additional time 9pm all the road is good for curfew to take place (This is to protect the bus drivers and passengers from being embarrassed by the security officers on patrol. A time from 7pm to 9pm should be enough to get home (meaning all transportation and roadside people should be home). Please, I want this piece of information to get to the NURTW chairman to add to his statements announced earlier, to give additional preventive measures on the use of face mask for preventions and not for criminal purposes. I am a paramilitary officer of the NIGERIAN MOD of the Catholic Church, and I also love fighting crimes of Internet frauds and physical crimes (Crime Investigation Unit). Please let the Governor know that I love Nigeria so much. If possible he asks for my email, this forum should send it to him.
I love Lagos State! I love Nigeria!
God Bless.