Okada Riders: Courting A Ban In Lagos
Commercial motorcycle riders, also known as okada riders, in Lagos, South-West Nigeria, yesterday went on the rampage after one of them was crushed to death by a vehicle in Ketu area of Lagos.
The victim, who was carrying two passengers, was trying to evade arrest by officials of Lagos State Traffic Management Authority, LASTMA, when the incident happened.
As is their usual stock in trade, they took the laws in their own hands and burnt two Bus Rapid Transport, BRT, vehicles, vandalised several others and blocked Ikorodu road. Security personnel had to be deployed to the scene of the incident to restore normalcy.
While we sympathise with the motorcyclist who died yesterday, we condemn the act of lawlessness usually exhibited by the riders across the state. The commercial motorcycle riders do not obey traffic laws and regulations. Whenever law enforcement agents try to whip them into line, they go on the rampage and damage government and private property. Most times, they are the cause of accidents but when it occurs, they attack motorists.
Although the state government has been very cautious over calls to ban them as has been the case in Cross River, Abuja and other state capitals, the riders have failed to reciprocate that gesture by obeying simple traffic rules and regulations.
What makes matters worse is that they also engage in armed robbery and other violent crimes across the state. The riders’ unions appear to be incapable of reining in the riders and the way they are going, they may force the government to ban them from operating in the state.
Attempts to regulate their activities have not been successful because the riders are recalcitrant and always at war with law enforcement personnel. Because of their recklessness, many of their passengers have lost their lives, while some are maimed for life after getting involved in avoidable accidents.
In spite of all this, Governor Babatunde Fashola has insisted that he won’t ban them, even though he doesn’t approve of motorcycle as a means of transportation because it exposes the passengers to danger.
Another reason he gave in the past for not banning them is that the vast majority of unemployed people, especially graduates, use it as a means to earn a living and fend for their families. But the riders may force the governor to change his mind considering the menace the riders now pose to themselves and other road users as well as the security threat robbers in their midst constitute to law abiding citizens in the state.
The influx of more riders from states that banned them and those from neighbouring countries like Chad and Niger who cannot even read road signs, has compounded the menace posed by the riders to other road users. A responsive government cannot turn a blind eye to this situation and allow it to persist.
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