Towing companies device new ways of extortion

Air travellers and other airport users who drive to both domestic and international terminals of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos may become victims of the numerous towing companies engaged by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), as they have devised illicit ways to extort money from motorists.

The towing companies deploy their staff to ensnare road users by stationing some people who carry luggage like travellers at locations designated as no parking zone and anyone who stopped to pick the “passenger” is swooped on and his vehicle would be clamped on by the towing van.

Motorists are forced to pay fines ranging from N15, 000 to N50, 000 depending on the circumstances and avarice of the towing company workers.

THISDAY investigation crvealed that the towing companies had disengaged from their rule of engagement with FAAN, which was to ensure that vehicles are not parked along the roads at the airport in order to ensure unobstructed traffic.

What they do now is to set traps for motorists and those who inadvertently fall into the traps become their victims and they are made to pay huge fines and the usually insist on cash payment.

This is the way the towing companies set their trap. One, they have removed most of the No Parking signs in the areas not designated for parking of vehicles and they ones they did not remove, they make the signs inconspicuous.

Then they would park their towing vans a distance away, waiting for a motorist “to fall into the trap”.

Once a vehicle parks at the non parking area, one of the workers would meet the motorist and engage him in discussion in order to distract him so that he would not enter his car and drive off.

As the worker is talking to him, the towing van would approach the car and block it and they would quickly clamp chains on it and drive it to one of the two major locations they park such vehicle until the owner paid the fine.

One such location is at the Maintenance Department near FAAN headquarters in Lagos and the other is located near Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) head office at the international wing of the Lagos airport.

The second way the towing companies extort fines from the airport road users is that they go out of the roads to other areas where people park their cars and tow them. These areas were not part of the places designated for car towing, but in engaging in excesses, they move to these areas and clamp on vehicles.

One of the victims of the towing companies narrated to THISDAY how he parked at the parking lot in front of the head office of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) one Saturday afternoon, waiting for his friend who worked for the agency, when some of the workers approached his vehicle with a toying van.

“As I lifted my face from my phone, I saw the towing van approaching my vehicle in reverse and blocked me. They did not even talk to me until after they have clamped on my vehicle. I protested that I was at a car park. They asked what I was doing there on a Saturday. It became obvious to me that they have gone overboard, doing whatever they want. I contacted a FAAN official who told me that those towing companies have a concession arrangement with FAAN; that there was nothing he could do,” he told THISDAY.

The video has gone viral where the officials of one of the towing companies arranged a man who posed as a traveller and stood near NAMA head office, on the way to FAAN living quarters and hoping that any taxi or Uber would stop and want to pick him. The towing van was stationed less than 100 meters away and waiting for a “victims.”

Reacting to the video, an operator at the airport said, “What manner of hoodwink is this? Already, the airport towing van operators have become of such huge nuisance value. They are a law unto themselves. They are callously released unto unsuspecting airport users rudderless. They are concessionaires of FAAN without any form of oversight. It is very heart wrenching when all we do are just stacked against the users of the same airport we are meant to position as a welcoming gateway.”

The Chief Executive Officer of West Link Airlines, Captain Ibrahim Mshelia who frowned at the activities of towing company at the Lagos airport, excoriated FAAN for so many exploitative charges leveled at passengers and other airport users.

“I still wonder why we pay tollgate fees at our airports accesses. Parking lot charges are the norm, but not access to the airports. Access to drop off and pick up is free everywhere outside Nigeria, as my research and experience have shown. I am still asking Google to show me where they still pay to access an airport to pick up or drop off. Only Nigeria pops up.

“This is 2021, we still charge people to access airports after they have been taxed several charges on their tickets, they pay to access the gate, pay to access the terminal, pay to use the lounge, haba!” Mshelia said.

When contacted, the General Manager, Public Affairs, FAAN, Mrs. Henrietta Yakubu told THISDAY that the agency has initiated talks with the vehicle towing companies in order to stop their hostility to airport users and also for them to stick to forestalling road users parking on the thoroughfare at the airport. She also said that motorists do not comply to the rules, especially those who have friends and relations that work with FAAN.

“When their vehicle is towed they start calling their friends and relations that work with FAAN who began to plead on their behalf,” he said.

THISDAY learnt that the towing companies operate as concessionaires so their actions are hardly influenced by the workers of the agency.

(THISDAY)