Lagos Okada Ban: Who Should Blink First? 

Babalola Yusuf Abiola

At exactly 2:30 pm on the 25th of May 2010, there was a knock on the door; Mrs. Kemi Olajire managed to open the door of the living room thinking the person knocking was her three year old son who has gone to school.

What went through her mind as she heard the knock was the trouble her little son will give her asking herself what caused her child early return from school but to her greatest surprise, it was her husband who was knocking the door, ‘what happened? Why did you returned early from the office today?’ She enquired, the husband who looked worried and dejected answered in a hush tone, I am one of the twenty five employees that were issued a sack letter today by the management.

You mean you have been sacked from work? Jesus! how will the family survive this? The pregnant wife asked rhetorically.

However, Kolade, believed that with his five years experience in the banking industry, it won’t be long before he get a new job but in other to keep his family together he asked one of his neighbors whom he has asked to manage the motorcycle he bought while he was still in the industry to return it, no thanks to the banking tsunami.

After sending his CV to various financial institutions and attending various interviews, Kolade accepted his fate and faced his Okada business squarely.

Also, Quasim Bello is a graduate of Mass Communication from one of Nigerian leading polytechnic, in the South West, aside that he sponsored himself through his National Diploma (ND) with an Okada he bought from the menial job he does after leaving secondary school.

After lectures in the school, Quasim ply major roads in the city where his school was situated and come to Lagos during semester breaks to continue his business on the popular Lagos- Abeokuta express way, also, he takes care of his aged parents and other younger siblings from what he gathered from the business.

Like Quasim Bello, Kolade Olajire also ply the ever busy Lagos Abeokuta express way in other to meet their family demands but with the new Lagos traffic law that was signed and enforced in Lagos lately the road Quasim and Kolade ply is one of the over four hundred roads that riders has been banned from plying and with this new law where the next meal will come from for this family is what they don’t know. 

But, unlike Kolade, Quasim was fortunate that his motorcycle was not impounded by the official of the Lagos state task force enforcing the compliance of the law.

These and many more are reasons why most Nigerian old or young took to motorcycle operation in the state. 

 However, notable activists are pressing for a review of the new Lagos traffic law, particularly the ban on commercial motorcycle as they converged in Lagos recently to condemn the action of the state government, describing it as “a bad law”.

Among the human rights activists that converged to castigate the new law recently signed into law by the Babatunde Fashola government are the Executive Chairman, Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL), Debo Adeniran, National President, Arewa Youths Consultative Forum (AYCF), Yerima Shettima; State Chairman, All Nigeria Automobile Commercial Owners and Workers Association (ANACOWA), Aliyu Wamba, 

According to Shettima, he said “the ban on Okada riders is condemnable and Lagos state government must have a re-think and a review of their position.

“It is draconian and does not represent what this government seems to be professing as a progressive.

He continued, “This is not a protest rather it is solidarity with the Okada operators in Lagos state which the state government banned.

“We felt the ban is uncalled for at this crucial time, we felt it is a wrong time, especially when our security issue has become a major threat so we must not allow things like this to compound the situation for us.

“We that are gathered here are leaders of various organizations and some of our followers; some of our members were among those that were affected.

“So, we deem it wise to come and solidarise with them, to tell the Lagos State government to have a re-think over the issue, since already they are in court”.

Debo Adeniran, the Executive Chairman, Coalition against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL) said, “This is a bad law and anti-poor.  It is not only the operators that are suffering it but majority of Lagosians given the traffic situation in Lagos.

“There is no pedestrian way not to talk of special route for Okada riders. If they have provided alternative roads no Okada rider will want to ply highways and most of the roads are not passable by cars and buses.

‘’Some of the roads they banned Okada from does not have passenger buses, taxis or even the three-wheeler tricyclists, so how do you expect people to get to where they want to go on time.

“You wait for the BRT buses and they will not be there on time. They said when the BRT became operational that one bus will come after the other within the space of 15 minutes but of course we know it is not working as they claimed because you have to wait hours on end before they come.
“It is a bad law and that is why it is being broken, if it had been a good law nobody would want to break it.

“If it has been a good government nobody will want to oppose the law, it is because it is a government that is implementing anti-people, anti-poor policy.

“And if you are implementing anti-poor policy, you don’t expect them to cooperate with you.
Though, the government has been advised to thread softly with the newly initiated law because with this law more people will be pushed into the already crowded unemployment market which may lead to increase in crime.

Meanwhile, the law has recorded its human casualty as in the process of execution as an unidentified policeman has allegedly killed a motorcyclist at Agege.

 

•  Impounded Motorcycles to be destroyed by the Lagos State Government

The police officer who was attached to Pen Cinema Police Division, Agege, Lagos State, was alleged to have hit the cyclist with a baton on the head on Oba Ogunnusi Road in the Ogba area of the state.

According to eyewitness’ account, the policeman hit the motorcyclist with the baton after he refused to stop when he was flagged; the man fell from the bike and died immediately.

The anonymous man said, “I don’t know why the Okada man refused to stop but they have been warned not to pass through Agege, because the road is among the 475 that motorcyclists were banned from plying.”

Though, police officers have earlier been accused of manhandling errant motorcyclists accosted in the area.

 

• a policeman arresting an Okada man in Lagos...recently

On the same day another rider, Dare Ajayi, escaped death by whisker when some policemen from the same division descended on him and beat him to a pulp on Haruna Street, Fagba Road, Ifako Ijaye.

Ajayi, who has bruises in some parts of his body, said Haruna Street was not among the roads Okada riders were asked not to ply.

The cyclist said, “I left my house around 6:30am. As I was going, I saw policemen standing. They flagged me down and I stopped. One of them told me to come down from the bike and I asked him what my offence was. He refused to answer. As I tried to move, he pulled me back and I slugged it out with him. We later fell into a gutter.

“The other policemen later joined him and hit me repeatedly with the butt of their guns and batons. They injured me on my hands, legs and neck. They also tore my cloth. Nevertheless, I did not allow them take my bike away.

“They later called two patrol vehicles to take me to police station at Pen Cinema, Agege, where I bailed myself with N1, 000 after some of them who know me intervened.” 

The Chairman, Ifako Ijaye Motorcycles Operators Association of Lagos, Branch B, Mr. Bayo Ayorinde, has however reacted to clamp down on the motorcyclists in the state saying the enforcement of the law was “brutal.”

His words, “The police need to be civil. Here at Haruna, Fagba Road, another rider was injured. The police beat him a lot. They have to enforce the law gradually. The state government should give exceptions to some places. Look at the streets, a lot of passengers are stranded.”

Collaborating Ayorinde’s comment, the Chairman, Motorcycles Operators Association of Lagos, Iju Ifako Branch, Mr. Ganiyu Ogundimu, said unemployment made some of the riders resort to commercial motorcycling.

He said, “The arrest of Okada riders should be done moderately. How do they want us to survive? This place is a rural area and people can hardly survive. The Fagba Road they arrested us is not even included in the law.

“There is no job and some of us are artisans. The same government demolished our shops. So, we resorted to Okada riding. They have injured someone now. Thank God he did not die.”

Although, the Lagos state police command through its public relation officer, Ngozi Braide has denied police involvement in the killing and injuries sustained by the operator saying the rider wonded himself while trying to evade arrest, contrary to this  Lagosian still believes banning of Okada on major highways is like putting a round peg in a square hole.

According to Sunday, who believed that before government could come up with such a law government must create another means of livelihood for the riders like it is done in Maiduguri when motorcycles were ban, the government make way for three wheelers also known as (keke) as an alternative source of livelihood for the teeming unemployed youths in the state.

Aside that he believed that motorcycle is the fastest means of transportation especially in a society like Lagos where the most used transportation network is by road. When one have to catch an appointment and due to the traffic situation in Lagos it is always very easy to take bike to where one is going, now that that means has been blocked and if not properly managed jobless youth may take up arms and it is the masses that will always suffer.

In a different vain, Alhaji Abdulraman Salaudeen, who love the current calmly nature of the state stressed that the level of accident and armed robbery in the state would be reduced with the introduction of the law because most accidents, injury and death are caused by motorcycles.

He said, “I would rather say I like the situation as it is now, everywhere is calm and very easy to access, when government introduced policy definitely there will be fall outs because a lot of people will be affected, but in the case of the Okada riders, majority of them are pushed into this business because of the failures of successive government to fix electricity in the country,” he concluded.

Meanwhile, the Lagos state government has vowed not to rescind its decision of banning motorcyclists from plying major highways and other specified roads in the state  saying sanity must be restored back to the roads and clampdown will continue on riders making people to ask, who will blink first? Only time will tell.