The ban, by the Lagos State government of okada and tricycles on 15 local government (six local governments and nine LCDAs) roads on Monday, has laid to rest government’s position on the matter. ADEYINKA ADERIBIGBE writes on how the policy can be sustained
Dehinde Majekodunmi (not real name), checked his watch and saw it was noon. There was no way he could meet his 2pm appointment at his Broad Street office from Agbado, a border town with Ogun State. The only optiuon he had was to hail a commercial okada, which he does often and from his phone, he punched his destination and takeoff point. Pronto one came, he donned his helmet and in minutes they were off. He made his office by 1.50pm. That was barely an hour 50 minutes on the ride. Price N2,500. But he doesn’t have to pay the rider directly. By paying through the app, he saved some N800, paying only N1,700. Life couldn’t be better, as he went in for his crucial meeting.
If Dehinde was lucky, not so Abraham Bashiru and his rider. They escaped death by whiskers on the Jonathan Coker Road, College, Ogba last week. The rider almost ran into a trailer when a lone driver of a saloon car, opened the door of his car almost hitting Abraham’s rider had made to overtake him, sandwiching him between the car and the trailer. He swerved, missed running under the trailer and crashed into the road median. Both sustained various degrees of injury.
Much for the second instance than the first, stakeholders and experts in the transportation industry had always been urging the government to take a stand on okada and tricycle operation.
Over the years, motorists would agree, okada operators have constituted themselves into a huge menace on the road, messing up government’s transportation master plan by their ubiquitopus presence on any crannies of the road.
Patrick Adenusi said they are meant only for rural transportation. Sadly however, okada and the tricycle operators have transformed into the main transportation alternative for travelers like Dehinde, who intends or hope to dash through traffic and avoid the nightmare that going through regular means of transportation has become.
A transportation expert and founder of Safety Without Borders, Adenusi feels, there is no better time than now that government must put its foot down to give a direction where the state is headed as regards transportation planning.
For him, government’s indecisiveness has caused serious distortions to the state’s transportation plans, giving the okada and tricycle operators the ground to mushroom.
Before and after 2012
Since 2015, the two and three wheeler forms of transformation have almost taken over the transportation space with the various transportation unions setting up various control unit from where operators are milked and cash ferreted to oil the willing pockets of pliable officials and security operatives who look the other way and allow them unfettered access to operate on the roads. The scenario between 2015 till date, was akin to the milieu in which they operated long before 2012. By by that year, government enacted the Lagos State traffic Law, which seemed to put them in check, restricting their operation from some 477 roads throughout the state.
Section 16 of the law, as well as schedule 2, not only prescribed the type of motorcycles permitted to operate on the state roads, but also spelt out the various fines the chief of which was the immediate impoundment of any okada that contravened the law.
The law at the time also helped to stem the tide of road robbery and okada accidents as all public general hospitals had dedicated wards for okada accidents.
However, the gains was reversed when enforcement stopped in 2015, succumbing to obvious pressure of the gaps in public transportation options available to the motoring public and the maddening traffic gridlock that makes the state road network a nightmare.
Before 2012, the engine capacity of okada, in operation across the state were lower than 100cc. The law stipulated the engine capacity of okada permitted on the state roads at 200cc.
However, the last five years have seen the massive proliferation of 200cc okada, by small firms which latching on the lacuna of section 16 of the law, which was left untouched in the Lagos traffic Law 2018 (as amended), started a technology enhanced transportation business, with supposedly approved capacity okada.
Such firms as the Metro Africa Xpress, better known as Max.NG floated the Maxokada, wqhich was quickly copied by other players like Gokada and the latest entrant into the hike-based okada business Oride which has over 5000 okada shuttling Lagos metropolis alone and has stretched their tentacles to Oyo and Edo States. These okada ran all routes and all bridges, and all highways. To edge out competitors, one only recently floated an express ferry shuttle.
They are regarded as the Uber alternative and many motoring public find them useful in dire circumstances.
Dean of the School of Transportation Studies, Lagos State University, Ojo, Prof Samuel Odewunmi described these okada as the new saviours on the road.
At a transportation summit last year, Odewunmi acknowledged that though they were undesirable and ought not to be encouraged as a form of transportation, closing eyes totally to them would be tantamount to denying the indices of sector. He canvassed that the government permit them to exist until it is able to bridge the supply gap that could cut off the needed oxygen.
For a man living along the Badagry axis, the okada have been Odewunmi’s saving grace several times. But it may not be for much longer.
Last Monday, the state government issued a directive, banning the okada and tricycle on all roads in 11 local governments and about 40 bridges in the state.
The order came barely after eight months after Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu at his inauguration assured the state that he would come up with a solution to the okada menace in the state.
Only last month after a security meeting, the government declared that it is yet to come up with a solution to the okada issue, and the state commissioner for Information and Strategy Mr Gbenga Omotoso had cause to restate this just last week, denying attempt by the government to ban them from plying designated roads and bridges.
All that changed on Monday. According to the government, okada operation would become illegal in six Local Government Areas (LGAs), and nine Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs). It will also be illegal on 10 major highways across the State with effect from Saturday, February 1, 2020.
Total enforcement
This time, government says enforcement would be total, in line with the State’s Transport Sector Reform Law of 2018 (as amended).
Handing down the directive, the Commissioner for Information and Strategy Mr Gbenga Omotoso said the new policy will help address the chaos and disorderliness created by illegal operations of Okada and tricycle riders in restricted areas.
Government also banned Okada and tricycles from 40 bridges and flyovers across the State.
The Commissioner said the measures were taken in the over riding public interest and a response to “the scary figures” of fatal accidents recorded from operations of Okada and tricycles in the State between 2016 and 2019.
Omotoso said the lack of regard for the Lagos Traffic Laws by the Okada and tricycle riders had resulted in preventable loss of lives, adding that their impermissible movements on restricted highways had also contributed to traffic jams.
He said: “After a robust assessment of the debate on what has been widely referred to as the motorcycle (Okada) and tricycle (Keke) menace, the Lagos State Government and the State Security Council have decided that the security and safety of lives of Lagosians are paramount.
“The figures are scary. From 2016 to 2019, there were over 10,000 accidents recorded at the 21 General Hospitals alone. This number excludes unreported cases and those recorded by other hospitals. The total number of deaths from reported cases is over 6000 as at date.
“Also, the rate of crimes aided by Okada and Keke keeps rising. They are also used as getaway means by criminals. Therefore, after consultations with stakeholders, the State Security Council, in compliance with the extant Transport Sector Reform Law 2018, has decided to commence enforcement of the law which bans the operation of Okada and Keke in six Local Government Areas and nine Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs).”
Omotoso said the enforcement would be total, warning that the Government would deal with violators in accordance with the Laws. He added that there would be zero tolerance for the movement of the banned vehicles on the listed highways and bridges.
According to Omotoso, operations of Okada and Keke NAPEP have been banned in the following LGAs and LCDAs: Apapa LGA, Apapa Iganmu LCDA, Lagos Mainland LGA, Yaba LCDA, Surulere LGA, Itire-Ikate LCDA, and Coker-Aguda LCDA.
Others are Ikeja LGA, Onigbongbo, LCDA, Ojodu LCDA, Eti-Osa LGA, Ikoyi-Obalende LCDA, and Iru-Victoria Island LCDA, Lagos Island LGA and Lagos Island East LCDA.
The Okada and Keke NAPEP are restricted on highways and bridges: Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Apapa-Oshodi Expressway, Oworonshoki-Oshodi Expressway, Lagos-Ikorodu Expressway, Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway, Eti-Osa/Lekki-Epe Expressway, Lagos-Badagry Expressway, and Funsho Williams Avenue.
Others from where it became illegal for any okada to ply are: Agege Motor Road, Eti-Osa Lekki Coastal Road.
Founding Dean of the Lagos State University School of Transportation (LASU-SOT) Dr Tajudeen BawaAllah described the directive as salutary. He commended the state government for its audacity to ban okada and tricycle operation in the outlined local governments.
BawaAllah who said okada is an undesirable means of transportation within a megacity said with the policy direction, government has shown its desire to sanitise transportation and push back okada and tricycles as a means of transportation in rural areas, or at best, the inner city roads.
BawaAllah would however want the directive to become statewide once it recorded success in the 11 pilot LGAs. “We can assume that the goal of the policy is that the remaining 46 local administrative areas of the state would be the next to be addressed as transportation experts and stakeholders would love to see is that the policy be extended to all parts of the state.
He said drawing up policies is part of the fundamental obligation of the government and commended the Sanwo-Olu administration for coming up with the policy to ban them on some selected local governments, roads and bridges.
He argued that as far back as year 2000, the UN-Habitat classified only four local governments – Ikorodu, Badagry, Epe and Ibeju Lekki as rural, while the remaining 16 out of the then 20 local governments as metropolitan areas, therefore presuming that such areas classified as rural would by now have grown more features to be seen as urban or semi urban.
He said the prevalence of okada and tricycle in the state is as a result of population explosion and the huge shortage of the mass transit system in the state.
“As a result of the huge supply gap in transportation alternatives, the okada which ought to be a temporary measure seemed to attempt to take over the transportation system, egged on by deteriorating road network and others.
He said the hold on full enforcement on okada was aimed at giving the government a breathing space to bring seven lines of the rail transit system along the main corridors. Thereafter okada could be pushed back to serve its purpose of rural transportation.”
He described the next four years as a game changer, urging the government to continue aggressive advocacy against okada use, until such a time that alternatives would be provided and many would naturally change their preference for okada.
He envisaged that the ban on okada operation will be extended to other parts of the state as soon as all transportation alternatives are rolled out by the state government.
While Bawa’Allah remains optimistic that the end of okada might just be here, operators felt the steam may not be for too long.
James Olalere an okada operator said government will soon forget all about the ban as we get close to the next general election. “Over and over again, the government have realized that the voting power lies with these okada operators and they will soon come. That time, we too will be waiting for them.”
Could he be right?
This Features was first published in The Nation Newspapers