One hundred and twenty three petty traders from Northern part of the country have been intercepted and detained by Lagos State government for “mass movement” into the state.
The Lagos State Government confirmed the arrest and detention of the petty traders on its verified Twitter handle, the youths, who were majorly commercial motorcyclist, were arrested while trying to enter Lagos.
The chairman of Lagos State Taskforce, Yinka Egbeyemi, said the trailer was accosted in the wee hours on Friday, after a security alert from the public.
He said his team swiftly responded to the information, which led to the seizure of the truck and its occupants at Agege area of Lagos.
“While my team was on operation, we got information from the public that some people had entered into Lagos in trailer loaded with over 300 people. We swiftly responded to the alert and trailed the truck from Berger area to Agege. We eventually intercepted the truck which carried no few than 123 men and 48 motorcycles.
“We have interrogated most of the truck’s occupants; from the information we gathered, some of them said they were coming from Jigawa State, with 48 of them claiming to own seized motorcycles. The rest of them said they came to Lagos in search of greener pasture.”
Mr Egbeyemi said the Lagos Police Command had directed that a fact-finding panel be constituted to profile the detained occupants of the truck, but he added that nothing incriminating was found on them apart from the motorcycles.
One of the detained occupants, Shuaibu Haruna, said he left Jigawa State to work in Lagos with his motorcycle. He claimed to have a wife and a son, but said he needed to double his income to cater for his family.
Mr Haruna said he intended to stay in Isolo area to which he had already paid N7,000 as accommodation fee.
Another occupant, Mohammed Ibrahim, said he left his base in the Northern part of the country to keep himself busy after finishing his farm work. He said he was going to Badagry to join his brother.
Newsflash247 checks show that there is currently no ban placed on commercial motorcycle service in Lagos.
