We the members of Association of Aggrieved Motor Tricycle or Keke
Vehicle Operators (AATO), in Owerri, deem it expedient to appeal to
your Excellency once more for a review of your latest ultimatum
banning the operation of motor tricycle (Keke) on the streets of
Owerri with effect from the 30th of September, 2017.
If your Excellency does not mind, we hereby crave your indulgence to
state the reasons for this passionate and special appeal, as follows,
which we hope will guide your further decisions on the matter:
1. More than 78% of tricycle (Keke) operators especially those within
Owerri Municipal Council are on hire purchase. The bonafide or
original owners and the operators are already midway into the
realization of their various Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) in order
to operate the contractual motor tricycles (Keke) for a given period
of time within which pay they will up the agreed amount involved in
the transaction. If motor tricycle (Keke) are banned automatically and
out-rightly as pronounced by Your Excellency at the end of September
2017, most of us would lose the tricycle to the original owners for
failure to meet up with the agreed or schedule time frame or period of
time of repayment.
2. Your Excellency would be the last person to elicit a reprehensible
condition that would not give us adequate time to take total
possession of the more tricycles that we have obtained under higher
purchase arrangement and conditions.
3. Against this backdrop, Sir, we plead for an extensive of time of a
period of not less than three months to enable us satisfy the
prevailing conditions and retain our various motor tricycles even if
we have to move away from Owerri, thereafter.
4. There is no gain saying the fact that most of our members were
adversely affected by the recent demolition of Ekeukwu Market Owerri.
Not only were our wives and parents wares and stalls devastated, they
have not been able to secure alternative shade (SHOP) as a result of
the unaffordable amount demanded at the Egbeada International market
being built by Your Excellency. On this ground also, we most humbly
and respectfully plead with His Excellency to graciously grant us an
extension of time to recover from this sudden displacement and
unsettling situation.
5. Granted that Schools, Colleges, Universities, etc. will reopen in a
fortnight for the 2017/2018 academic session, we as parents and
guardians are mandatorily expected to pay school fees and provide for
the accommodation, transportation, maintenance of our students in the
various colleges and Universities across the country. In addition, we
will be required to purchase books, new school uniforms, sandals and
other essentials for those in the primary, nursery and secondary
schools. At the prevalent cost of living, ordinary feeding is very
expensive: not to think of saving for the education of our children
and wards. It is therefore from the daily earnings of our tricycle
operations and daily market sales that we fend for our children at
schools. Any attempt therefore, at relieving us of the only option and
source of existence and those of our immediate dePendants would be
suicidal. His Excellency would not wish to jeopardize the future of
our children and posterity
6. Your Excellency is already aware that tricycle operation (keke
riding) has drastically reduced the rising rate of graduate
unemployment and crimes in Imo State and Owerri Capital in particular.
Imo commercial city provides the most attractive opportunity for the
business to thrive. An immediate termination of the business will
further compound the chaotic and entropic unemployment and crime rates
which your Excellency has strenuously tried to curb in the last six
years. Since no one would want to spite his face by cutting his long
nose, we plead most sincerely with Your Excellency to consider the
evils associated with banning tricycle operation on Owerri streets and
roads, and reconsider this order, proposal and policy of government
for at least the next three months, to allow for proper adjustments
and cushioning.
7. Not only will unemployment hit the University graduates who
presently derive succor in Keke riding; the importers of Keke and its
accessories, the dealers on spare parts, who probably must have
committed so much money in restocking their shops with such goods and
services will be adversely affected. Hence going ahead with the ban,
your Excellency, will be counterproductive. This therefore explains
why we seek for the grace of at least three extra months to enable
these categories of business men and women to diversify and reduce
their stocks. Doing other wise, your Excellency, will lead to several
avoidable untimely deaths through suicides, hunger and poverty.
8. Importers of motor tricycles into the state need to be given some
time so as to clear their latest orders and stop forthwith.
9. Above all, your Excellency, Motor-tricyle operators in Owerri alone
are more than 50,000 in numbers, while the Nnamdi Okorie’s newly
procured township taxes are barely 300. Those who might successfully
benefit from the three hundred Passat cars are most likely to be the
regular taxi drivers and others who will use their close contacts with
top Government officials to appropriate some of the vehicles such that
at the end of the day, only about 200 of us will be favoured leaving
out more than 49,800 others into the unemployment market.
10. Our hope expectations and with the urban renewal project of your
administration was that with dualized and expanded roads in place
among major streets in Owerri, there will be more than enough rooms
and spaces for both motor tricycles and township taxis to complete
favourable for the teeming and ever growing passengers or commuters.
It will not be kind or fair for Your Excellency, to use the untenable
excuse of the road congestion to force motor tricycle operators out of
the road and streets of Owerri Municipal Council now that the urban
renewal project has provided enough spaces and equal opportunities for
all transporters to thrive and possibly excel in their chosen
endeavors.
11. Having said this much, our dear Governor, and Senior Advocate of
the Masses (SAM), we the Aggrieved Tricycle Operators in Owerri are
very optimistic that your prompt consideration of these requests will
go a long way to save the imminent tension-soaked and explosive
situation in Imo State. This is counting on your continued magnanimity
and milk of human kindness, especially when it is realized that 90% of
mechanics and their apprentices who were recently displaced from ORJI
Mechanic Villages have resorted to Keke riding and are yet to fulfill
their hire purchase agreements or MOU. It will interest you to know
that, already, your opponents, in the PDP and other parties who saw us
a stumbling block by virtue of our resolute support for your
re-election in 2015, have resorted to making caricatures and fools of
all of us. It is inconceivable Sir, that we should be the ones to be
so derided and the heat put on us.
12. We are still supportive of the Rescue Mission Administration
which we championed with everything we had. Since we cannot object to
your policy to ban the motorcyclists from the capital city, please
graciously grant us this extension of time for now.
This is commending you for your usual benevolence, magnanimity and
special consideration.
Thanks
Yours sincerely,
Signed:
Comrade Okorie Chimezie Comr. Victor Ajukwara
SECTMA TOWAN
08066147384
Comr. Samuel Dikeocha
SECTMA