By Praise Chinecherem
Business and commercial activities were on Wednesday grounded in Onitsha, Anambra State following protests by operators of tricycle popularly called Keke over alleged N300 extortion by touts.
The protest which took off from DMGS round-about with over 200 tricyclists caused heavy traffic gridlock along the ever-busy Awka, Oguta, Enugu and Upper new market roads.
Commercial and private vehicles were forced to divert to other routes, while traders and civil servants coud not access their work places on time as the protest lasted for over six hours.
No security personnel was sighted while the protest lasted.
A tricycle operator who simply identified himself as Chike Oruche, decried what he termed government deliberate efforts to frustrate them, all in a bid to generate money towards “turning Anambra to Dubai.”
“You can’t turn Anambra to Dubai by making your people to suffer untold hardship. Governor Soludo has not allowed us to rest since he assumed office.
“How can we pay N4,000 in a week and also pay #300 to touts per pit, where do we get the money from? We voted for him to curtail our problem but he is worsening it,” he lamented.
Another protester who did not want to be named, warned that more protests would be held if nothing was done to stop the touts from extorting them.
He said, “We will continue the protest if after today Governor Soludo did not listen to us by sacking them. They did same thing for loading and offloading by articulated vehicles and traders are complaining.
“We grounded Onitsha and environs today to attract government’s attention. We are disappointed in this government because we never expected Soludo will allow us to suffer.”
