Truck drivers blocked the Abuja-Lokoja road, after policemen allegedly shot and destroyed the tyres of their colleagues’ trucks.
The incident caused traffic gridlock that lasted for more than six hours yesterday morning.
A conductor of one the trucks that had its tyres deflated, Musa Ibrahim, said as they approached a police checkpoint at Dabi-Bako, some police officers attached to the highway patrol team attempted to stop their truck.
“As the driver was trying to manoeuvre his way, one of the policemen shot and deflated three tyres of our truck and one of the truck behind us,” he alleged.
He said the policemen immediately left the check point after the shooting. The situation led to a protest by the drivers during which they blocked the road.
The intervention of the Gwagwalada Area Council chairman, Alhaji Adamu Mustapha, who arrived the scene in company of Gwagwalada Police Area Commander, ACP Mijinyawa Jahun, calmed the situation and the truckers ended the protest at about 11am.
The Area Council chairman, who was visibly angry over the road blockade, urged truck drivers and police to always work together peacefully.
“As I was coming, I saw some sick people in some vehicles waiting to be taken to the hospital but they were caught up in the traffic,” he said.
The Gwagwalada area commande
r, DCP Mijinyawa Jahun, declined to speak with our reporter but the spokesman of the FCT Police Command, DSP Anjuguri Manza, said the road had been cleared after the intervention of the area commander, adding that the command condemned the blockade of the road by the protesting drivers.
“As the command recognised the right of citizens to express their grievances, members of the public are advised to always adopt legal and legitimate means of doing so instead of taking laws into their hands,” he said.
