Truck driver arrested for blocking Yola highway
A truck driver has been remanded for blocking an intercity highway at its busiest section in the Adamawa State capital, Yola.
The trucker had driven his long articulated truck across one end of the 1.6km-long Jimeta bridge last week in protest against security agents he and fellow truck drivers accused of extortion.
The blockage had caused a heavy build-up of traffic along the road which links Yola with other major towns and communities in the central and northern parts of the state.
The trucker, 27-year-old Usman Bello, was thereafter arrested and charged with traffic obstruction.
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Court papers indicate that the trucker had on August 5, 2021, completely blocked the Jimeta bridge for hours, leading to a prolonged traffic gridlock lasting for hours and causing hardship to commuters to protest the alleged extortion of N15,000 by security agents.
The charge against him showed that he had been investigated by the police and found to have committed several motoring offenses.
He is charged with “obstructing public way or crossing line navigation, driving without driver’s license, operating a vehicle with an expired certificate of roadworthiness and operating with defective lights.”
The charge sheet says he has, by his act on August 5, violated Section 165 of the state penal code law as well as sections 7, 51, 62, 10, 54 of the road traffic law.
When the charges were read to him in court, the trucker pleaded guilty to the offenses, following which the Criminal Court II in Yola, presided over by Hon. Nuhu Musa Garta, ordered that he be taken to prison, and the matter was adjourned to August 20, 2021.
