Clearing Agents Raise Alarm As Hoodlums Extort N5,000 On Imported Vehicles At Tedi Village

By DAPO OLAWUNI

Clearing agents under the aegis of Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) has raised an alarm over the continuous extortion on imported vehicles being cleared out of Classic-3 Bonded Terminal located at Tedi Village, Ojo Lagos.

The extortion is being perpetuated by hoodlums known as “agbero” who collect as much as N5,000 on every unit of vehicles leaving the vehicle bonded terminal.

DAILY TREND gathered that the collection was initially placed at N1,500 but was later increased to N3,000 and recently increased again to N5,000. Our correspondent learnt that containers pay far higher that these.

Confirming the situation in a chat with our correspondent, Task Force Chairman of ANLCA at Tin Can Island Port Chapter, Alhaji Rilwan Amuni said that clearing agents are currently at the mercy of hoodlums at Teddy Village.

According to him, these illegal collections would definitely add to the already high cost of doing business and prices of vehicles in the market.

Alhaji Amuni explained that the association has made efforts to stop the extortion, but that due to the crisis within the fold of ANLCA, whenever such moves are made, the other faction would truncate the move.
“It is happening at Tedi Village, from the expressway through to the terminal, the access road is stretchy, and the hoodlums from that town are really tormenting clearing agents who are going there to pick up their vehicles.
“The local government fee is N500, the rest is being collected by agbero.

“We tried to fight the illegality, I took some of our people there to seek end to the matter, but because of the crisis in ANLCA, the other faction also went there and told them not to listen to us.

“This is what the other faction are doing that is counterproductive, whenever they see us doing anything right and people are praising us, they will go ahead to disrupt that thing.

“For example, during our strike action at Tin Can Port, they were not happy that we led the revolution, they were the ones that went behind to schuttle our efforts.

“It is because of the crisis in the association that has made these illegal collections to continue. If we were so united, they cannot dare try this. All these are being added to the cost of vehicles” he said

Our correspondent reports that the Classic Bonded Terminal is located at a far distance to the Badagry expressway with the access road deteriorated and not motorable.

The ANLCA top man lamented that due to the bad access road, it becomes dangerous to resist the hoodlums without any support, adding that the agents or drivers might end up getting attacked or mobbed.

He said that vehicles are transferred to the Bonded Terminal by barges, but delivery are taken by road.