19th September, 2011
Following security threats posed by the dreaded Boko Haram sect in the country, the Lagos State Government has ordered all auto dealers displaying vehicles on roadside across Lagos, South West Nigeria to quit.
P.M.NEWS gathered that the state government is not leaving anything to chance to ensure that the bombing by Boko Haram sect was not allowed to take place in the state.
There have been several threats and rumours that the Boko Haram sect had vowed to unleash mayhem in Lagos, especially the alleged threat to bomb the Third Mainland Bridge.
Before now, the government had asked the auto dealers by the roadside to quit as they were not authorised to sell their cars at such places.
With the renewed onslaught by Boko Haram sect, the state government is ready to send auto dealers packing from the roadside and also to ensure sanity in the state.
P.M.NEWS gathered that the government had sent letters to all auto dealers plying their trade by the roadside to quit because of security threat and that government was ready to enforce the laws of the state to the letter.
One of the auto dealers told P.M.NEWS that he had received such a letter from the state government asking him and others to relocate from the roadside because of security threat.
A source from the Lagos State Motor Vehicles Administration Agency, MVAA confirmed to our reporter that a letter was actually issued to all auto dealers displaying their vehicles on roadside.
Efforts to get the Commissioner for Transportation, Mr. Kayode Opeifa to comment on the development proved abortive as calls made to his phone were not picked.
Opeifa, while inaugurating the Park Monitoring, Abandoned and Disused Vehicle Committees at the weekend also directed all mechanics and technicians operating on the streets and under the bridges across the State should move to any of the mechanic village in the State with immediate effect.
He stated that the bridges were not designed for such purpose and that anyone found to have violated this directive would be brought to book and punished according to the laws of the state.
The commissioner also ordered auto technicians who display their vehicles on the roads, medians, kerbs, road setbacks and walkways to desist from this unconstitutional act as the Abandoned and Disused Vehicle Committee had been mandated to remove any vehicle found to be abandoned, disused, constituting nuisance on the roads, violating the physical or Environmental Sanitation Law, those parked at any place where they were not expected to be parked or those without number plates.
—Kazeem Ugbodaga