Enugu State Government has declared that reports in a section of the media on Wednesday that bus drivers and keke riders protested in Enugu over so-called excess taxes or levies, was totally false and malicious.
A statement by a spokesman for the State Governor, Hon Onyekwere Nwobodo said the protest had nothing to do with tax or fuel price increase, but to draw the attention of government to their desire to have spaces allocated to their members inside the new terminal.
According to the statement, they had complained that members were regularly violating, and contravened on the no-parking order around the Ogbete main market, making it necessary for the terminal managers to allocate them a designated space to park inside the facility.
“It was obvious the rag-tag opposition in Enugu, for want of credible issue on which to campaign, deliberately misrepresented the situation on ground to their media hirelings who created the impression of discontent within Enugu, to score cheap political point.
“It is no coincidence that this so-called protest which never happened since the three years of this administration and the friendly tax regime was taking place now that political campaigns were ongoing!
“It was while leaders of the two groups were interfacing with the management of the terminal management inside the facility, that opposition infiltrators hastily gave a convoluted account to gullible reporters, who ran off to file the fake accounts, quoting unknown persons without bothering to verify from leaders of the drivers” the spokesman said.
The statement went further to say that the attempted hijack and subsequent misrepresentation of today’s incident makes it expedient for Enugu citizens, going forward, who wish to ventilate genuine grievances on any matter or policy, to seek security clearance, to guarantee orderly procession, and avoid a repeat.
The state Government thanked the police, for ultimately forestalling misuse of the protest to cause major breach of peace, as the weary, disjointed opposition in the state, had planned, promising that “Enugu state shall never fall back into the hands of the locusts.”
