Keke NAPEP operators lament multiple levies, extortion by secirity agencies

Commercial tricycle operators known as Keke NAPEP, operating in Yenagoa metropolis and its environs have lamented increasing extortion by security operatives and multiple levies charged by officials of the Bayelsa State government.

The operators lamented the daily exhortation by policemen and sometimes officials of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC).

A member of the Keke Drivers Association of Nigeria (KEDAN), Bayelsa State chapter, who pleaded anonymity said the policemen collect money from them at checkpoints and off-checkpoints both in the day and at night.

Another operator, Eke Odoputa, said some policemen were in the habit of harassing them and impounding their Keke over ‘wrongful parking’. “At various checkpoints in the state capital, operators are made to part with fines ranging from N3,000 and N5,000, while men of the FRSC charged them N10,000 for any trivial excuse.”

They said Keke operators buy multiple tickets and stickers at N300 each daily while also paying a minimum of N18,000 yearly to government agencies and transport unions. “We buy stickers N4,000 from Environmental Sanitation Authority; N5,000 (union registration fee); N2,500 (state Ministry of Transport); N2,500 (local government) in this Bayelsa”, Odoputa said. They appealed to the Bayelsa Command of the Nigeria Police Force and Governor Dickson to intervene and save them from the extortion.

Efforts to get the reaction of the state Police Public Relations Officer, Asinim Butswat, at press time proved abortive.