NEW TRENDS IN THE TARABA TRICYCLE BUSINESS
By Jethro Yerga
The chairman, Taraba State Commercial Tricycle/Motorcycle Association of Nigeria (TASCOTMAN), Abdulahi A. Bello has declared that he would not leave any stone unturned to ensure that he repositioned the association in a most enviable position to enable members find joy in their occupation.
The chairman made this declaration while chatting with our reporters in his head office in Jalingo recently.
He said when he assumed office he discovered that most of the members of the association were returning their tricycles to their owners because of their inability to meet up the daily balance, so said he decided to seat together with his exco members and came out with an official increment of just 20 naira per each drop in order to save members from constantly been at logger head with the tricycle owners.
While appealing to passenger to accept the increment in good faith, the chairman said sometimes the young men would collect a tricycle on a higher purchase at the rate of 1.150 million where they have to be paying three thousand naira daily to the owner.
He said if you add it up with the price of 12 or 15 litters which they likely consumed in a day and the amount they may eat during the day, you would see that the young men are always in a tight corner to make earns meet. Abdulahi stated that the association under his leadership had introduced the use of white inner lightening system in all the tricycles registered in their office aside the recent changes in the mode of dressing of all their members.
“Initially the riders dressed in knickers and verses and all sorts of indecent dressings that tell nothing good about them. We are gradually checking such things to completely remove them from the system before the year runs up”.
The chairman also noted that he was considering building a befitting secretariat for the union before his tenure in office finally runs up. He noted that “Taraba State Government does not recognize any motorcycle riders association other than TASCOTMAN.
“We have 64 branches in the state and each of these branches has an office. These branches are located across the 16 Local Councils of the state. “We have 68 units in Jalingo. Apart from these offices, we also have an office inside the Ministry of Works where the Motorcycle Monitoring Agency is located.
While appealing to the Taraba State government to extend the curfew time imposed on tricycles from 8 o’clock to 10 o’clock, the chairman also called on the government to support the youth by providing tricycles to them on discount rate, just the same way the former governor, late Phm. Danbaba Suntai did to them.
He however, appealed to the security agencies to consider the tricycle riders as their brothers who are only struggling to make ends meet.
“They should reduce the high handedness they are unleashing on our members. It is very common to see that before 7 o’clock, some of the security agencies who are using the opportunity of the curfew to extort money from our members would start arresting these boys. There is no day that I will not go to bail 40 to 50 tricycles from security agencies. He remarked.
