Passengers Stranded As BRT Workers Go On Strike

Commuters in Lagos, western Nigeria, were
stranded, Saturday morning, when workers with
the Bus Rapid Transit, BRT scheme refused to
work as they protested their unpaid salaries. The commuters, who expected to
board the bus after the monthly
sanitation, were left to bemuse their fate when the boarding points at Ketu and Ojota
bus stops were empty. It was revealed that the ticketers and drivers
refused to work as their salary for last month had
not been paid-a situation which they are not used
to. The ticketers and bus drivers met with their
bosses at their Ketu office and efforts made by our
correspondent to get the management to talk,
proved futile as the correspondent was bundled
out of the park and his recording device seized. However, two of the drivers who later spoke on
the condition of anonymity, accused a senior staff
of cutting their earnings. According to one of the drivers who claimed to be
a senior staff,"since this man came on board,
things have changed drastically. He has kept
making promises which he has never kept for
once. Our salary was always paid on the twenty-
fifth of the month but now, we are yet to get our salaries. "We used to get eight tins of milk monthly before
he came but presently, we don't get any and there
isn't any explanation for this. "The leadership has not also told the truth about
our salary because we earn just N45,000 as
against the N75,000 that outsiders have been
made to believe".