Hearing in the suit filed by luxury bus owners and 12 other transporters against Governor Akinwunmi Ambode and the Lagos State government over the sealing of all the terminals in the Jibowu area of Lagos, will commence on Wednesday at an Ikeja High Court.

The matter was last week re-assigned to another judge, following the inability of the court to sit as scheduled.

The transporters, whose operations were affected by the September 2017 clampdown, are, in suit number ID/4603GCMW/17, praying the court to stop the Lagos State government from restricting their activities on the busy Ikorodu Road to Jibowu/Yaba axis. They are also seeking a compensation of N500 million, which they say is the aggregate loss they have suffered since their respective terminals were sealed.

The state government had last year given the transporters seven days to leave the area and relocate to Ojota and Ojodu, in compliance with a new transport policy that restricts all inter-state passenger and cargo operations to designated motor parks at various entry points to the mega city.

Before his recent redeployment, the former Special Adviser to the Governor on Transportation, Prince Olanrewaju Elegushi, had said the operators occupy structures originally built for residential purposes, disturbing the flow of vehicular traffic; their vehicles also damage the welded wire fences demarcating both sides of the busy road.

The national president of the transporters, Prince Emeka Mamah, disclosed that “before the last option of going to court,” various attempts were made by the transport unions to resolve the matter amicably with the state government, including memos, which pleaded with Gov. Ambode to allocate plots of land with certificate of occupancy (C of O) to the transporters elsewhere.

Related News

The ALBON president also described the Ojota Motor Park that the inter-state transporters are being compelled to move to as very unsuitable and inadequate for their kind of operation, even as he complained that the place had already been occupied by other operators.

Reacting to the claim that the inter-state transport operators were occupying residential buildings, Mamah said most of the properties have always been used as business premises, recalling that, until the luxury bus firms came to the area many years ago, it used to be the den of criminals and miscreants.

“I know that one of the buildings used to be Faze 2 nightclub decades ago, while another one was occupied by an engineering company. I am also very much aware that one of the buildings presently occupied by a luxury bus firm used to be Crossroads Hotel those days. So, how come suddenly the area has become strictly residential?” he asked.

In his reaction, one of the leading luxury bus transporters, Chief Eugene Ojukwu, lamented the damaging impacts of the Lagos State government’s action, including the scaring away of passengers from Jibowu following the invasion of the area by armed men and the wide publicity it attracted.

Ojukwu, chairman of E. Ekesons Bros. Nigeria Limited, said the closure of the terminals had further jeopardised luxury bus transportation, which had been in distress for years now, with many of the companies collapsing.