Hardball

There is something galling about loss – material or more – suffered at the hands of people who are neither identifiable for personal liability nor available to be held accountable for damage done. And some motorists must have felt that way early this week in Ojoo, Lagos, when members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) and commercial motorcycle (Okada) operators clashed over ticketing tariff.

Sporadic gunshots rent the air and missiles were freely used on Monday at the Iyana Iba / Alaba Rago market area of the Lagos suburb as members of the transport union and commercial motorcyclists, mainly Hausa-speaking, squared off in supremacy of brigandage. Reports said what began as a mild standoff rapidly degenerated with use of dangerous weapons, amidst insinuations that an ethnic conflict was underway. The fracas, according to eyewitnesses, ensued when the commercial motorcyclists rallied to protest harassment by the NURTW members after one of them was brutalised (some accounts said killed) over ticketing by agents of the union, which had raised its levy on Okada riders in the area – a move the motorcyclists resisted.

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For over an hour, the motorcyclists blocked the Lagos-Badagry expressway with burning tyres, wielding cudgels and machetes to attack defiant motorists and hapless passers-by. Some commercial buses that dared the barricades had their wind screens smashed. Commercial establishments in the precincts hurriedly closed shop, with the operators fleeing for safety. The fracas, which started around Iyana Iba, spread to the gates of Lagos State University (LASU), Ojoo where vehicles parked by owners were wantonly vandalised by the rampaging motorcyclists. Video footages on social media showed the mob smashing those vehicles, unchallenged or restrained by security agents seen in the vicinity.

The Lagos State police command subsequently denied that the clash had ethnic intent, arguing it was rather “a mere conflict between transport unions and their Okada units on ticketing and increment in tariff.” A statement by the command’s spokesperson said Police Commissioner Hakeem Odumosu had ordered deployment of additional police personnel in the area to maintain law and order, adding that he also directed the relevant Area Commander to “invite leaders of the affected Okada riders unit for an urgent meeting.”

It is obvious that the police’s concern is to reach a negotiated truce between the feuding groups, which is fine to foster peace. But why should aggrieved motorcyclists wantonly vandalise vehicles parked by owners who had nothing to do whatsoever with the ticketing dispute? There should be accounting for such collateral lawlessness, shame that the police doesn’t seem interested. In any event, it is high time there was firm regulatory oversight on the transport union’s tariff system and enforcement, otherwise another fracas, perhaps in another area, may not be too far away.