Category: Commentaries

Commercial motorcycle operators popularly called “Okada” last week took laws into their hands in protest against aspects of the Lagos traffic laws as they affected their activities. The riders, who have been at daggers drawn with the government for restricting them from plying 475 roads in the state, took to lawlessness as government moved to enforce the law.

According to reports, the motorcycle operators were incensed by the arrest of more than five thousand commercial motorcycles. They went on rampage in some parts of the state and by the time the dust had settled 10 Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) buses had been damaged even as some passengers were inflicted with injuries.

The Okada operators had since the law was enacted vowed to resist it hinging their grouse on the ground that it will send them out of business. But the government has pressed on with the law allowing some time for the operators to come to terms with it. But as the riot has shown, Okada operators are not ready to budge unless they are defeated by the superior power of the government.

As it is, the law has to be implemented as any piece of legislation that cannot be enforced is no law.

The government has over time expressed serious worry over the excesses of the commercial motorcycle operators. Apart from their flagrant disregard of traffic laws, they drive very dangerously, ride against traffic and constitute a serious health hazard to other road users. They have also been fingered in many armed robbery attacks using the high speed of their bike to beat traffic and evade arrest.

Even safety laws as the use of helmets and restriction on the maximum number of passengers are observed in the breach. They could also be easily seen and noticed for their unruliness, molesting and attacking motorists at the slightest incident of infraction. Records also have it that most of the accident patients in our orthopaedic hospitals are victims of Okada accidents.

It was for some of these reasons that the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) in January 1, 2009 began the enforcement of the use of crash helmets by the operators. Like the current law, the Okada operators vehemently resisted it, staging at will, all manner of arguments and protests so as to stall that high-minded exercise.

But the commission went ahead to enforce the law, arresting thousands of defaulters which like in the present circumstance, elicited protests. That law has come to stay even though it is still being flouted by many motorcyclists. Thus, Okada riders do not seem to have a choice than to start coming to terms with the fact that the state government will finally have its way in this piece of legislation. The Lagos State House of Assembly has even threatened outright ban on commercial motorcycles if their acts of lawlessness are not reined in. That would be a foreboding measure. But the operators have a strong point in arguing that the ban will lead to loss of jobs for its army of members and families.

With the high rate of unemployment in the country in the face of rising cost of living, it will be highly uncharitable not to admit the deleterious effects of restricting Okada operators from plying as much as 475 roads. It is also proper to admit that Okada came into the nation’s transport calculation as a child of necessity.

For a very long time in this city as well as many others across the country, an efficient transport system was completely non-existent. And in the particular case of Lagos, grinding traffic jams made movement a daunting task. Okada then came to the rescue as it made for easy movement though not without serious repercussions. However, residents of the city had to contend with the attendant risks as they were considered a lesser evil; an indication of how bad the situation was.

With time, the limitations of Okada began to dawn on the people. Apart from being an inelegant means of transportation, it began to lend itself to sundry abuses as the criminally-minded ones in their midst took advantage of its getaway services to commit sundry crimes. No government worth its salt can afford to standby while this continues. Thus, in spite of the reality that the restriction will throw many of its operators out of job, it does appear that the Lagos state government has no choice than to implement the law to the letter. No doubt, the temporary losses by the operators by way of loss of jobs will be adequately compensated by the larger benefits to society that will ultimately come with that piece of legislation. It is therefore in the overall interest of the society that the activities of the Okada operators are properly regulated. That is why government is there in the first place.

So it not a matter of confrontation and lawlessness as the Okada riders took resort to last week Monday. They must increasingly have to come to terms with the reality that they cannot win this war. Before now, some state governments have taken similar decisions restricting Okada operators to certain inner roads. Ekiti state government is very close to enforcing similar decision even as the traffic situation there can be described as a child’s play when compared with Lagos.

In effect, the restriction is a thing whose time has come. Those nursing the feeling that Okada would continue to operate as a viable means of transportation in our urban centres are living on borrowed time. There is a time for everything and one thinks Okada has served its purpose. Tricycles are quickly assuming the character of a bridge between Okada and commercial buses. They have the advantage of quicker movement in traffic hold-ups though this has also come with its own problems. The government must also move quickly to regulate their activities on the roads. As things stand, tricycle operators must be made to conform to traffic laws. The disorderliness that characterizes their activities may soon be their greatest undoing. Through such a regulation, there will be more decency on our roads as Okada departs for good.

Though the transport situation is yet to substantially improve, there is nothing to indicate that Okada operators are even prepared to change from their unruly activities. Rather, they have become more daring and menacing in their operations, running against traffic at their whims and caprices such that gives the impression that we have a lawless state. In this lawlessness, those who benefit are some unscrupulous law enforcement agencies, especially those charged with the control of traffic. In the face of the ban placed on police men against the mounting of roadblocks, the traffic points have now become the most veritable avenue to extort money from Okada operators who would rather offer money to law agents than obey the law.

It would appear to me that apart from the lure of money, that law enforcement officers are equally overwhelmed by the sheer number of Okada defaulters that they consider it time wasting and cumbersome to apprehend them. They seem to be saying, take money from them and let them go. So the acts of lawlessness go on unrestrained.

The restriction therefore comes with the added advantage of saving the law enforcement agents the problem of managing the menace of the high number of Okada defaulters. Our roads will be better for it.

It is a well known saying that leadership is an opportunity to serve and not a trumpet call to self-importance. This is obviously against the position of Governor Theodore A. Orji of Abia State who has bamboozled the people of Abia State with praise singers.

He made this disclosure through Ben Onyechere, Special Assistant on Public Communication. The words of the governor read: “The determination of the Governor of Abia to expose the state to development as it is common knowledge by what he has achieved in a short space of time what previous administrations put together could not attempt. And this is nothing to make noise about as is the belief of the governor…”

The irony of the government in Abia State since Orji came to power over five years ago is that it is always looking for whom to blame for its afflictions from all angles with mendacity and proposition that his immediate predecessor was a thorn in his neck, hence he told the state of its ‘liberation’. Yet, it is sorrowful to see the high degree of negligence to duty during this Orji-led administration. This government is also always making boast of itself that the opposition are at its jugular to pull it down. But if the question must be asked, is there actually a government in Abia State? What can be seen now is a governor who is just titular, always exasperating the good people of Abia State to react, as was his postulations in the aforementioned quote.

Has Orji any trumpet to blow? It could be recalled that in his Nigeria@52 address to the people, there was no tangible thing to hold upon from the governor’s speech.

Because he had nothing tangible to say about Abia State, so he continued to talk about nationhood, Political hood, and all those hoods.

Governor Orji knew that his government had no stock to take, and good he admitted that. Was he pleading for mercy from the people to understand his non-performance in governance and that they should assist him so that the development he had refused to render the people could reach all the crannies of the state?

The governor continued to bring the ‘Nation’ into his speech. He did not know his bounds. And the good people of Abia State wish that he could bring boundless development across the towns and villages of the state. He said that he sees an enormous latent energy of the people in building, and admitted that the people had been enduring a sustainable economy, which he felt was “what is required to strengthen the security of our state”. So, should the people be punished?

He had boasted and pleaded to the people of the state to partner with the government, talking about “kidnappers and general insecurity in the state.” he said that the government had “worn” (that was how he put it, instead of ‘won’, which shows the poor media advisers he has). But how has Orji won the clearly poor governance in Abia State? We can go on and on to expose the tribulations of the Orji-led government of Abia State, right from the head to the toe of the aides that surround him.

What are those rigmaroles of the governor? Sometimes one wonders why Governor Orji is good at propaganda over his own people and with a spirit of maliciousness. This has made Ndi-Abia to say in many quarters that they were concerned about the position of ‘governor’ that Orji is occupying against the people’s clamour, which they see as being still vacant. This is a man who sacked non-indigenous civil servants in Abia State, thereby showcasing his egocentricity, prejudiced and visionless leadership.

Orji is a governor but in earnest he does not understand the meaning of ‘leadership’, not as a word, but as a practice. This is why an observer cried thus: “T .A. Orji is there because the people of Abia as a whole never associated themselves with governance. They see government as an abstraction hanging somewhere out there. They never associated government with visible, touchable human beings. They do not associate their local government chairman as part of government nor counsellors who happen to be their brother or sister. The least T.A Orji can do is to list what he has done in each of the local government areas that make up Abia since he became governor.”

Can we see in the just mentioned quote why Orji was using “nationhood” in his speech as coverage? Can we say that Abia State got the leadership it deserved in Orji? No! What Orji calls ‘development’ is the building of a new government house, which for years, has not been completed. He was not talking about the pitiable roads in Abia. “My prayer is that God will deliver Abia and Abians from the hands of evil and selfish rulers. Come 2015, Abia will witness a divine change in real terms,” an observer prayed.

Without doubt, like many people have said, Orji has automatically written his name in the Black Book of mis-governance. People are still very sad about these events. Another observer has this to say: “What trumpet can he blow? After 2015, it will never be remembered that anybody like T.A Orji passed through the surface of the earth not to talk of being a governor. Somebody should tell me one single achievement of this administration. No road, no school, no hospital, workers are not paid, touts everywhere…”

It has become obvious that Governor T.A Orji hadn’t anything in place to blow any trumpet for. The people are regretting that Orji is now a governor. He is only good at mouthing off. He had even boasted of doing the work that ensured that the ravaging floods from the bank of River Niger, which visited most states across the country, did not affect Abia State. But the people are telling him to name any specific things he did that made the flooding not to affect Abia State. Propaganda is the worst form of methods in government.

Onwumere contributed this piece from Aba