In a move that is sure to trigger fuel scarcity in the highly populated sity of Lagos, Nigeria, petroleum tanker drivers in the country’s economic capital have stopped lifting petroleum products. Officials of the Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD) said the decision is to protest incessant harassment, extortion, intimidation and attacks on tanker drivers by officials of the Lagos State Transport Management Authority (LASTMA). The private Guardian newspaper quoted PTD official Solomon Kilanko as saying that four of the 15 trucks recently impounded by LASTMA officials were still in the agency’s custody, while drivers have spent 160,000 naira (US$1,230) each to secure their tankers. Tanker drivers and authorities have clashed consistently, especially in Lagos, where indiscriminate parking of the trucks obstruct traffic in the grid-lock prone city. Nigeria depends on a system called ‘bridging’ (using petrol tankers to distribute products) for getting petroleum products to all parts of the vast country of 140 million people.
