Fides Media Living the Faith
By Michael Nnebife
The Chairman, Tricycle Owners and Riders Association of Nigeria, Awka Zone, Prince Collins Ozojiofor, has commended Anambra State Governor, Prof Chukwuma Souldo, for coming up with 20% reduction in tax for transporters in the state as a measure to cushion the effect of fuel subsidy removal.
The chairman, who made the commendation during a press interview on the recent palliative package of Governor Soludo’s Government, for Anambra residents, said the 20% reduction in tax for transporters would reduce the sufferings of his subjects to the barest minimum.
Prince Ozojiofor, who recalled that his association had been complaining to the governor about the untold hardship his subjects were facing as a result of the economic situation in Nigeria and the methods of tax payment in the state, thanked the governor for heeding the cries of the transporters.
Ozojiofor noted that for Governor Soludo to go down on the taxes the transporters paid as a way of relief package showed he had listening ears to the plights of people, especially those in the transport sector.
He expressed the Association’s continual support to the Governor as long as he continued to listen to its complaints.
He also thanked the State Commissioner for Transport, Mrs Pat Igwebike, through whom, he said, Governor Soludo heard the transporters’ cries, and pleaded with her to continue with her good work in the Ministry without fear.
Ozojiofor used the forum to deny the membership of one Mr Osita Obi to the Anambra State Tricycle Owners and Riders Association of Nigeria, Awka Zone, saying he was meant to understand that he (Mr Obi) was an activist in line with what Obi wrote on social media, and argued that an activist had nothing to do with the leadership business or affairs of a transporters association in a state.
While advising Mr Obi to desist from blackmailing the Association, but to write only about truth as an elderly man, Ozojiofor assured Obi that the door of the Association was always wide open for those who wanted to join it.
Also, the Chairman, Awka and Onitsha Bus Drivers Association, Old Road Branch, Comrade Fred Nweke, maintained that Governor Soludo’s palliative package was a welcome development.
The transport chiefs, Ozojiofor and Nweke, however pleaded with the governor to save the Anambra transporters from further agitations by creating a fertile ground that would afford them opportunity to be paying their taxes based on what they described as pay-as-you-go, through e-payment as obtained in other states of the South East.