The National Security Council’s proposition to ban commercial motorcycles is already causing some stir nationwide, writes ADEYINKA ADERIBIGBE

Rising last week from a crucial meeting where it reviewed the recent attack on Kuje Correctional Centre by the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP) terrorists, the National Security Council had mulled a nationwide ban on commercial motor cyclists.

Announcing the proposed ban, the Attorney-General of the Federation Abubakar Malami, said it was to check the high rate of terrorism in the country.

Banned, alongside commercial motorcycles is illegal mining, which is  becoming a major heist for bandits, especially in Zamfara, Niger, Taraba and Plateau states.

By Malami’s calculation, 60 million motorcycle operators nationwide must consider taking a second job by the time the Federal Government unveils the law banning commercial motorcycle operation nationwide.

While the figure quoted by the nation’s law officer remains contestable, he opined that the ban will help strengthen the onslaught by security operatives against the bandits terrorising and making a section of the country ungovernable.

The Security Council had been worried that the attacks by bandits have followed same or similar pattern. The terrorists who attacked the Kuje Custodial Centre had stormed the facility on hundreds of motorcycles, with which they made their escape with the prized members, who had been incarcerated at the Kuje.

From Kuje, in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Kaduna, Zamfara, or Katsina, Niger, Taraba, Plateau and even Owo, in Ondo State, where the terrorists killed no fewer than 70 Catholic Church parishioners during a Sunday service, the terrorists made their arrival and getaway on motorcycles, popularly known among locals as okada.

The two-wheel vehicle favoured by many globally for its maneuverability, especially in urban megapolis reknown for traffic congestion have become a victim yet again of its success, as a quick dash vehicle for commuters who are in a hurry to get away from terrible traffic congestion.

Ironically, it is not the Federal Government alone that has been worried about the growing profile of okada as a means of transportation in many urban centres in the country.

Many states had in the past taken the same route, which the Federal Government announced last Thursday. For instance, on June 1, this year, Lagos State commenced a regime of total ban of okada operation in 15 of its 57 local councils. It was the culmination of a war of will which started in 2012 with partial restriction on roads in these same councils, in its bid to bring these operators under control.

According to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, apart from the total ban of okada operation on highways and bridges, the business remained banned in Apapa Local Government Area (LGA), Apapa Iganmu LCDA, Ikeja Local Government Area,  Ojodu LCDA and Onigbongbo LCDA, Lagos Island Local Government, Lagos Island West LCDA, Lagos Island East LCDA, and Lagos Mainland and Yaba LCDA, Surulere Local Government, Coker Aguda LCDA, Itire-Ikate LCDA, Eti-Osa Local Government, Eti-Osa East LCDA, Eti-Osa West LCDA, Iru Victoria Island LCDA, and Ikoyi-Obalende LCDA.

The governor, said the total ban will be enforced in phases, adding that besides accident and insecurity, okada operation is becoming a cog to the realisation of its transportation masterplan.

The Sanwo-Olu administration had been worried lately about the growing proliferation of okada operation in the state by non-Hausa speaking urchins, on who, security reports have continued to raise the red flag.

To forstall any development, the government had banned okada operation, noting that more comfortable alternatives are being rolled out to shore up the supply end of supply-demand pull, and ensure that citizens have a better, more comfortable alternative means of moving within the state.

While Lagos banned okada operations in only 15 council areas, it was outright ban in states like Zamfara, Kano, Taraba, and Borno where bandits have maintained almost a permanent feature killing, maiming and entrenching a presence for over two decades.

In most of these places, including Kaduna, and Benue, okada operations have been banned, because gunmen are known to have attacked and killed many rural communities using okada as a means of easy escape.

In the Southwest, though Ogun, Ondo, and Ekiti are yet to make  statements about okada operation, Osun and Oyo had insisted on regulating operators.

The state’s position was further armed by that of the National Council on Transportation (NCT), Nigeria’s highest policy making platform, had insisted that okada is unacceptable as a form of transportation.

However, because it did not have the power or force of law, NCT merely gave each state the power to legislate for or against okada operation in their domain.

In Lagos for instance, the government decided that impounded okada must be crushed.

So far, about 300,000 impounded okada have been crushed in the Lagos State TaskForce crushing plant at Ikeja alone. This is despite unconfirmed statistics which put okada in the state close to two million.

But Smart Nwankwo, an Economist and private businessman said, the experience in some of the states showed, the Federal Government may not make a success of its intended ban on commercial motorcycles nationwide, simply because it lacks the manpower to enforce the law.

The sheer number of operators involved nationwide is too huge compared to the number of available hands in the security arms, such that an effective ban may be a mirage.

He urged the Federal Government to cut the size of its scope of enforcement to ones it could cope with, adding that doing otherwise is a recipe for failure.

Juwon Odunayo said a total ban of okada operations nationwide is another example of Federal Government’s insensitivity to the economic realities to which its misplaced economic policies have driven Nigerians.

He said many who have been driven into okada operation as a result of unemployment or underemployment would now have to be driven out again into the shrinking labour market to further compound the crisis, thus further giving the security operatives more headaches.

He said as seen by examples in Lagos, Ogun, Oyo and elsewhere, many commercial motorcycle operators are themselves security operatives, – policemen, Army, Air Force, the NSCDC and such likes, who uses their okada to eke out just a living to further cushion the biting impact of the economic crunch in the economy.

Granted that okada’s crime profile has continued to grow in recent time, Odunayo believed te Federal Government itself must decide if it ever wanted to put an end to the unending reign of bandits and terrorists in the name of Boko Haram or ISWAP, adding that government’s body language seems to be encouraging the growth, rather than the annihilation of the terrorism on any inch of the nation’s soil.

Juwon like other Nigerians, believed crime will always proliferates where the bar of risk does not exist, adding that if the okadas are banned, terrorists would devise another means of achieving their targets if government remained hand-in-gloves with crime.

Though the Minister of Information and Culture Alhaji Lai Mohammed had severally insisted the Buhari administration has done so well in reducing the spate of insecurity, with the nation’s law officer, Malami adding that the ban on okada would further aid the fight against terror, Nigerians remained unconvinced and to them, the ban on okada, nationwide may further plunge millions of families who are on the fringes, deeper into the jungle of poverty.

Avoidable boat mishaps on the Lagos State’s waterways have drawn attention to the need by the government to rework its enforcement template and stem rising casualties, writes ADEYINKA ADERIBIGBE

The arrest, last Wednesday, by the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) of a boat carrying six passengers on the Lagos waterways (five days after 17 people died in a boat mishap that occurred shortly after leaving Mile 2 in the evening), enroute Ibeshe, for plying the waterways without wearing life jackets, has again drawn attention to the disregard to transportation regulations.

Many fishermen, water transportation operators, and users, basking on their “local or inborn swimming skills,” are notorious for breaching safety laws, only to turn on the heat of blame on the government once the situation turns awry.

The NIWA team, returning from Ibeshe, where they had gone to commiserate with the community over the loss of the 17 people, (on Eid el-Kabir’s eve), who drowned after their boat capsized, a few minutes after take-off at Mile 2. None of the passengers, including the captain, wore life jackets.

Though the NIWA Lagos Area Manager, Sarat Braimah, had pledged to prosecute the offenders to serve as deterrent to others, the this at best may be far in-between and unlikely to provide answers to insecurity of lives the state waterways.

A source in the state Ministry of Transportation said the government was worried that her riverine citizens were becoming careless on the waterways, a development, he said, was putting a dent on the government’s effort to integrate water transportation as a viable mode of commuting the riverine population spanning its five divisions: Ikeja, Badagry, Ikorodu, Lagos Island and Epe (IBILE).

According to the source, who preferred anonymity, the rise in “voluntary suicide” cases on the waterways is putting a “high risk” flag on water commuting, a development that may, ultimately, impact patronage, said to between 30,000 and 50,000 daily across the waterways network routes.

If quick intervention is not deployed, the rising profile of insecurity may defeat the purpose of the massive investments on waterways by the Babajide Sanwo-Olu administration whose commitment to mainstreaming waterway transportation as a viable mode has been maverick with his commitment to traffic and transportation planning through the THEMES Agenda.

Several times, the Lagos State Waterways Authority (LASWA) had declared travelling after 6pm illegal. Also illegal is moving on the waterways without life jackets. “Even if you are merely going to cut or plait your hair, buy condiments, or going for a meeting that requires you to make use of your canoe, you must use your life jacket before you row out into the water,” the source said.

The sad thing about the incident was that of the 19 passengers who died, 17 were from the same father. They were going home to celebrate the Eid.

The government had repeatedly conveyed the importance of life jackets to the water travellers.

For a state that made ritual of the yearly distribution of life jackets (teenagers, kids and adults), across the riverine communities, it is preposterous that water transportation operators, or their patrons, could venture to travel on the waterways without this critical accoutrement.

Nine months ago, 19 passengers of a boat were saved from what could have been a calamity because they  had their life jackets on when their vessel capsized after take-off from Ebute-Ero enroute Ikorodu Terminal. But the avoidable death of the Ibeshe 19, and the prevention of another last week, by the arrest of six others, speaks to the need for the government to rework its enforcement strategies and be sterner in putting an end to the madness on the waters.

This is moreso because wilful disregard to safety measures on the waterways is preventing the maximisation of other efforts and initiatives being put in place by the government to promote safer waterways.

Some of these initiatives, according to an operator Apiah Jimoh, includes the installation of safety buoys and other navigational aid along the waterways, alongside regular training of operators and awareness in riverine communities on the need to heed water transportation safety regulations by  NIWA and LASWA.

Last month, the state had, at the maiden edition of the National Transport Technology Conference (NTTC), reeled out its massive investment and resources committed to water transportation not only to endear it to users, but to also checkmate incessant loss of lives.

Sadly, however, the clean slate observed in the first half of the year, which the Sanwo-Olu administration expected to continue took a dip in the early days of this month, when two female passengers drowned, after their boat, a 20-seater vessel, departed Ipakodo ferry terminal in Ikorodu early Wednesday morning, and capsized almost immediately after take-off.

The boat named, R&N2, had submerged not more than 200 metres from the Ipakodo Jetty. The quick intervention of the water guards and LASWA search and rescue team rescued 15 other passengers.

The incident, however, seemed to have woken the “beasts of the sea” as barely three days after that tragedy, a 19-passenger boat conveying 17 people late on Friday capsized along Ojo waterways area of Lagos State, leaving the passengers dead.

Both Braimah and LASWA’s General Manager, Damilola Emmanuel, said the boat which set sail at 7.45pm, flouted the 7am to 6pm waterways rules.

But waterways users have been expressing fears that waterways safety guards employed to enforce the rules across the waterways have compromised and lowered their guard, resulting in unsafe waters.

Alhaja Taibat Shehu, a petty trader, a regular user at Ipakodo, who trades on food items at Ebute wondered why it would take NIWA to nip another incident at the bud just a few days after two other boat mishaps occurred in quick succession.

According to Alhaja Shehu; “I am still struggling to come to terms with the fact that the two boat mishaps that just occurred on the Lagos waterways happened within four days’ intervals. My house is in Ikorodu and the fastest way to get to the Ebute Ero market is through the water. I commute to and fro daily on the water and often I see many of the operators flouting the laws at will.

“When I resumed the market last week after the Eid, I was badly shaken by the two mishaps and you cannot imagine my worry when I learnt that NIWA just the same week arrested some people for riding on the water without jackets. For two boat mishaps to claim 19 lives, then something is wrong somewhere. The last boat mishap which claimed about 17 lives was said to have flouted waterways rules on when to operate, but the first one which claimed two lives, nothing has been said on that.” The authorities said they are investigating the cause of the mishap, but relatives have since claimed and buried the remains of their loved ones and had moved on.

Another waterways user Anthony Ekpaiye urged LASWA to make its presence felt on the waterways. He urged the government to have Marine LASTMA, to apprehend willful offenders of all water transportation laws adding that especially during this time of incessant rainfall and increase in water levels, water incidents tend to be on the increase as against other seasons.

“The boats operating illegally especially outside stipulated times do so because of tardy enforcement. Government needs to create Marine LASTMA to complement the efforts of Marine Police, whose responsibility it is to provide security on the waterways against pirates and other errant operators of the waterways transportation laws. Sometimes, when I use the boat from Mile 2 to Ibeshe, and atimes to Ajido, you won’t come across any security patrol boat. If there is constant patrolling of the waterways by security boats, errant operators wouldn’t willfully be flouting the rules as regards waterways navigation time,” Ekpaiye said.

LASWA GM, Mr Damilola Emmanuel said the agency would continue to assure all waterways users that the government would not rest on its oars in ensuring that the waterways assets are made safe for all users.

He wondered why anyone would venture to ride on the waters without life jackets, even as he said LASWA would embark on an aggressive awareness campaign across all the five divisions for all operators to help comply with the regulations to make waterways safe.

To further make waterways safe, he said, LASWA would continue to enforce safety measures and go after operators of substandard boats in order to take them out of operation.

He said LASWA has increased the response time for its Search and Rescue Unit from 15 to 10 minutes in order to improve response time during emergencies.

He said water transportation has a very huge potential, a reason which informed the government’s investment in the sector to improve patronage. He added that LASWA would continue to sanitize the sector by taking out any operator whose activity is a threat to lives and property of waterways users.

He said the government has been prosecuting any operator culpable of incidents on the waterways, adding; “One of the boat drivers whose actions led to a boat mishap some years back was recently sentenced to life imprisonment by the courts. We are coming harder on operators who are compromising standards. With the huge capital committed to the water transportation sector, we cannot fold our arms and allow mediocrity to demotivate our people from tapping into the water mode of transportation.”

Emmanuel further disclosed that LASWA has partnered with a leading manufacturer of boat engines in the state to sell at subsidized prices even as the government itself often gift operators boat engines to enhance their operations as a way of incentive for supporting the government’s initiatives.

He admonished passengers on the waterways to be eternally vigilant, he urged anyone who observed any illegal activity or errant operator to speak out immediately and report to the agency.

He also urged them to disembark from any boat which the operator refused to comply with the state’s waterways regulation on the use of life jackets. “The life jacket can save you. Buy your own life jacket if you must. Inspect the life jackets that you are given and make sure it does not have holes or is not torn, and avoid travelling on the water at night,” Emmanuel said.

ADEYINKA ADERIBIGBE examines how insecurity is posing a threat to the nation’s massive investment in rail transportation.

Rail transportation, one of the legacies of the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration is being threatened by insecurity.

Insecurity, which upped the profile of the railway in the country, is becoming the grave in which its achievements, in the last six years, would be entombed.

Ironically, the Abuja-Kaduna corridor, President Buhari’s most-profound game-changing legacy, responsible for the soaring image of the railway, is the most affected by banditry.

The legacy is not because the administration inaugurated the Abuja-Kaduna standard gauge rail line, it is that modern train construction, in accordance with the 25-year Railway Development Roadmap initiated in 2002, is being witnessed by a new generation of Nigerians, 124 years after the British colonial masters, began the Lagos-Ibadan railway construction in 1898.

More striking is that, like the British, who completed the Lagos-Ibadan narrow gauge in three years, the Buhari-led administration completed a double lane standard gauge, on the same Lagos-Ibadan corridor, in four and a half years.

But for the Shehu Shagari administration that started the construction of a standard gauge industrial line for the Ajaokuta Steel project in 1983, sustained rail construction stopped in Nigeria in 1964, when the Federal Government delivered on the 166km Gombe-Maiduguri line, which completed the Port Harcourt to Maiduguri, (the nation’s Eastern narrow gauge corridor), started in 1914, with the construction of the Port Harcourt-Enugu line.

Nothing else painted more graphically, the gains Nigeria had made in the last four years, due to the transformation of the rail sector than the figures posted by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in its 2021 Transportation full year report.

Nigeria, according to the NBS, made N2.41 billion in revenue, while the train carried 2,890,111 passengers in 2019.

According to the bureau, last year, 2,714,458 passengers travelled via train, compared to 1,020,368 passengers recorded in 2020, representing a 166.03 per cent rise. Similarly, 168,301 tonnes of goods were transported in the same year as against 87,440 recorded the previous year, showing a growth rate of 92.48 per cent.

Total revenue generated from passengers in 2021 was N5.70 billion, which was 226.44 per cent higher than the N1.75 billion recorded in 2020.

Read Also: Fixing Nasarawa’s insecurity quagmire

In the same vein, revenue generated from cargo freight in 2021 amounted to N317.57 million, which was higher by 12.87 per cent  compared to N281.35 million made in 2020. Last year, other income receipts stood at N66.80 million, higher than the N5.19 million recorded in the preceding year.

Though the revenue generated is not yet comparable to that of major nations such as the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, Europe, Japan, China and India, the increase in passenger revenue indicated that Nigeria was on its way to optimising the contribution of transportation as a major earner and change the paradigm where it contributed less than four per cent to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

But the gains may be eroded due to insecurity.

Security, according to experts, was the main catalyst for the growth of the railway sub-sector since 2019, as the railway was presumed to be the safest means of commuting; and the single line Abuja-Kaduna standard gauge, inaugurated by the current administration in November 2017, became the saving grace when insecurity at the Kaduna Airport, and bandits mounted a siege on the Abuja-Kaduna expressway, killing, maiming and kidnapping.

The Nigeria Railyway Corporation (NRC) became the major beneficiary, as huge demand switched to the rail, which was comfortable, affordable, accessible and safe.

As indicated in the NBS report, the trend could have continued on that trajectory but for the lockdown, due to the ravaging effect of COVID-19 pandemic.

However, demand picked again in 2021, and was projected to continue in that trajectory until March 28, when terrorists attacked an Abuja-Kaduna train carrying over 900 passengers and crew, leading to the drop in the popularity of the rail system as passengers are now afraid to travel by rail.

While some paasengers in the attacje train were fortunate to escape, many were killed on the spot or captured. This incident created fear and anxiety in other individuals who may have been eager to try rail transportation, and it also demonstrated that rail transportation, formerly seen as a safe mode of transportation, was now unsafe.

The March attack was the most deadly in recent history in the country. Last October, the NRC suspended operations on the same route for the first time for the same reason, when the train was attacked.

Despite the Federal Government’s efforts at rescuing the kidnapped passengers, the unfortunate victims had spent 100 days in the abductors’ den. The reality, however, is that every day the abductees spend with their abductors worsen the market for the NRC, as it would result in further drop in passenger and cargo traffic.

Though the use of railroads appears beneficial for passenger traffic, it is more so for cargo which distribution it enhances. Also, it reduces traffic congestion on the roads because of the sheer volume of passengers and cargoes the train could carry at once.

last weekend, painted a grim picture of the impact of the attack on the corporation’s business. According to him, passenger traffic, which had been picking on the other two major lines Lagos-Ibadan, and Itakpe-Warri, suddenly, nosedived; as passengers, afraid of such attacks, dumped the railway.

According to Arisa, for the Western Corridor, the NRC has been forced to reduce passenger trains as a result of the sharp drop in passenger demand. The insecurity was further compounded by a sharp increase in running cost occasioned by a rise in the price of diesel (Automotive Gas Oil), now selling at N850/litre.

The Lagos-Ibadan which enjoyed four trips per day has been slashed to two, on ordinary days, except Saturdays, which remains four return trips. Similar cut was effected on the Itakpe-Warri line, to cut down on running costs, Arisa intoned.

He added; “though the south appeared safer, compared to what is being experienced in the North, yet the impact of the Abuja-Kaduna attack on our operation has remained devastating.

Same insecurity, he said, has been responsible for the suspension of the Lagos-Kano passenger and cargo movement on the narrow gauge.

According to him, because of the constant security breach between Niger and Kaduna, the corporation has had to suspend the usually oversubscribed Lagos-Kano train, the corporation’s western line cash cow.

Invariably, the endemic insecurity rage, which has found a foothold in the rail transportation subsector, suggests that revenue growth from railway operations, particularly passenger revenue, will dip by year’s end in 2022.

Arisa gave an inkling of this when he said revenue had witnessed a sharp drop in the second quarter of 2022. “Before the attack, we raked in between Three to Four Million Naira, daily in revenue on passenger trains, on the Lagos-Ibadan standard gauge, but from April, we have been struggling to make One Million Naira daily on the same corridor.”

In effect, not only are there huge revenue projections shortfall by year end, leaving an ugly tailspin in the country’s inability to meet its loan obligations for securing/delivering the projects.

The precarious debt situation in which the nation is stuck becomes more troubling because the other legs of the project may never be actualized thus leaving the nation’s railway system in a dire strait.

Undoubtedly, the festering insecurity if not decimated may put paid to the realization of the other legs of the project, which means that the Ibadan-Kano end, which was the third and final part, with a spur connecting Kaduna-Katsina and Kano (i.e Lot III), of the project may never takeoff. Already, China Exim which had earlier indicated interest to support in the delivery of the entire western Line of Lagos-Kano Standard Gauge is prevaricating on the loan to set it off.

Incidentally, the final Lot fell within the North-Central and North-West zones, two zones with a very high insecurity profile.

Even the Kano-Maradi rail line, proposed to connect Nigeria to its lacklocked neighbour Niger Republic, which was awarded to Mota Engil, a Portuguese firm for $1.82 billion, which the former Minister of Transportation had in February this year announced would be delivered before May 29, 2023 is yet to takeoff for same reasons.

What is more, even the narrow gauge rehabilitation which was being met with Federal Ministry of Transportation’s capital project’s statutory allocation may have to be stopped as appropriate cash back up expected to come from revenues from the rail networks may be inadequate.

Former Minister of Transportation Rotimi Amaechi had flagged off the rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt-Enugu narrow gauge with some fanfare last year. With consistent drop in revenue, it may not be too long before work along that narrow gauge corridor is stopped altogether.

With the Lagos-Ibadan not fully connected in line with the dream behind the 25 year rail rehabilitation and construction masterplan, the full potential of the railway to unlock the potentials of the inland dry ports, may become stillbirth. With this, the dream of ensuring that transportation gains the needed traction to become a major contributor to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

With a population of over 200 million people and a potential 300 million metric tons of goods waiting to be captured by the railway, the nation despite the gains of the past four years may witness massive reversals.

A logistics expert, Patrick Adenusi wondered why the Buhari administration would be toying with destroying all the gains of the administration in the railway sub-sector by playing kid gloves with insecurity. He wondered why the government would deploy massive investments in the rail sector just for political convenience and not for the purpose of making a difference in the nation’s economy and the pattern of movements for goods and services.