The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Danfo drivers

  • Tekno reconcile with Danfo drivers

    Going by a recent picture posted by Tekno, one may assume that the issue of intellectual property between popular singer Tekno and Danfo Drivers (Mad Melon and Mountain Black), has been resolved.

    It was reported days back that the latter stole the Ajegunle music stars’ song, ‘Kpolongo’, without their consent, claiming the singer did not get their permission before doing a remix.

    Having been off the scene for a while, the duo’s appearance at the recently held Headies 2018, was one of the highlights of the event.

    With the settlement being promoted on social media, fans of Tekno have commended him for doing the right thing.

  • Opadokun hails Ambode’s plans to Phase out yellow buses

    Opadokun hails Ambode’s plans to Phase out yellow buses

    Chief Ayo Opadokun, Convener, Coalition of Democrats for Electoral Reforms (CODER) on Tuesday, commended Lagos State Government’s plan to ban yellow commercial buses popularly called Danfo from plying roads in the state.

    Governor Akinwunmi Ambode’s plan, Opadokun told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that reckless driving by ’Danfo’ drivers called for concern and government action, adding that they had made life unbearable for everybody on Lagos roads.

    ”They drive without adhering to traffic rules and regulations and they do it so ungodly. The one-chance issue is mainly perpetrated by Danfo drivers. Government has every right to check their excesses, therefore, Ambode should go ahead and ban them on Lagos roads,” he said.

    NAN reports that on February 6, 2017, Ambode revealed plans to ban yellow commercial buses from Lagos roads this year.

    He said this while speaking at the 14th Annual Lecture of the Centre for Values in Leadership (CVL) at Muson Centre, Onikan with the theme: “Living Well, The Challenge of Africa’s Future Cities.”

    Ambode said the present connectivity mode in Lagos was not acceptable and befitting for a mega city and called for well-structured transportation mode to address the challenge.

    “When I wake up in the morning and see all these yellow buses and Okada (commercial motorcyclists) and all kinds of tricycles, the claim that we are a mega city is not true. We must first acknowledge that, that is a faulty connectivity that we are running,” he said.

    Opadokun also commended Ambode’s development initiatives and urged him to sustain them to better the lot of the people.

    ”I must confess that I have attraction for that young man for all he has been doing in the state. The way he has been turning the state around positively is marvelous and he should be commended. I pray that God will grant him greater wisdom to make more and better strides,” he said.

  • Three danfo drivers ‘stab’ NURTW member

    Three danfo drivers ‘stab’ NURTW member

    Three commercial bus drivers, who allegedly beat and stabbed a National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) official, were yesterday arraigned in Lagos.

    Bidemi Adamo, 20, Sodiq Saka, 26 and Saheed Badru, 34, are facing a three-count charge of breach of peace, conspiracy and assault at an Ikeja Magistrates’ Court.

    Adamo resides at the Police College in Ikeja; Saka lives at Ayantu Street in Ifo, Ogun State and Badru resides at Oluwa Street in Ifo.

    Prosecuting Inspector Essien Ndarake said the accused committed the offence on May 2 in Agege, Lagos.

    He said the accused with others still at large conspired, beat and stabbed a NURTW member, Akeem Arusat, the complainant, with knives.

    “The complainant was on duty collecting revenue for the union when the accused stormed the place with dangerous weapons. He usually issues tickets to transporters for loading at a bus stop. The accused numbering 25 men stormed the place and attacked him. They were all armed with cutlasses, knives, iron rods and other dangerous weapons, beating, hitting and stabbing him,’’ he said.

    “But for the quick intervention of the police, the complainant would have been killed.”

    The offence contravened Sections 166, 171 and 409 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011.

    The accused pleaded not guilty and were granted N50,000 bail each, with one surety each in the like sum.

    Magistrate E. Kubeinje adjourned the case to June 9.

  • ‘Danfo’ drivers, touts stab task force official at Oshodi

    ‘Danfo’ drivers, touts stab task force official at Oshodi

    COMMERCIAL bus drivers and touts yesterday at Oshodi allegedly stabbed Rilwan Oseni, a War Against Indiscipline (WAI) official with Lagos State Task Force on Environment and Special Offences, on his head and chopped off two of his fingers.

    The incident occurred when the task force impounded six commercial buses and arrested some drivers for allegedly obstructing traffic at Oshodi under bridge.

    The drivers and touts attacked police and paramilitary officers with broken bottles, cutlasses and other dangerous weapons to secure the release of the seized buses.

    Oseni was immediately rushed to a nearby hospital before he was transferred to Ikeja General Hospital.

    Police spokesperson Dolapo Badmos, a Superintendent of Police (SP), urged motorists to comply with traffic laws or face the consequences.

     

  • Lagos and the nuisance of ‘danfo’ drivers

    Lagos and the nuisance of ‘danfo’ drivers

    For me, it was like a scene from a blockbuster movie. It was such a horrendous scene that I couldn’t get over the shock for some time. I left home for work that fateful day, looking forward, as usual, to an eventful working day. But alas, the whole of the day was messed up by the wayward action of a naughty ‘danfo’ (commercial bus) driver who acted in, perhaps, the most irresponsible manner I had ever witnessed in my whole life. We were caught in the typical Lagos early morning traffic gridlock which wasn’t really as bad as it used to be because it was a moving traffic.

    My mind was not actually on the traffic situation as I had an urgent task to accomplish that auspicious morning. As I was I was thinking of how I would carry out the pressing assignment, I looked up and behold I saw a ‘Danfo’ bus that moved completely out of our line and faced on coming vehicles in what I considered a very audacious display of lawlessness and haughtiness. He drove in such a reckless fashion that every oncoming vehicle had to delicately swerve to avoid having a smash with it.  Sadly, a heavy duty lorry which, perhaps, was oblivious of the stray ‘danfo’, was approaching and within a twinkling of an eyelid, there was a collision between the lorry and the ‘danfo’ and what followed next is better seen than imagined. It was such a repulsive scene.

    By now, the whole place was in serious disarray as commuters, pedestrians and others along the road were running helter-skelter in utter confusion. Thanks to some brave guys who put a call through to the Lagos State Ambulance Service, ambulance came in no time to ferry wounded commuters in the ‘danfo’ for emergency medical care. The whole place had become a mess of sort. The goods inside the heavy duty lorry had littered everywhere. The hitherto moving gridlock had now become completely motionless with serious overriding impact on adjourning and other link roads along the route. It took the combine efforts of men of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority, LASTMA,   Federal Road Safety officials, traffic police and others to put the traffic situation back to normality. But then, the havoc had been done already because I eventually ended up spending about 4 hours on a trip that ordinarily shouldn’t have taken me more than 30 minutes.

    Welcome to the above the law and irritating world of Lagos ‘danfo’ drivers!  It is no longer news that in Lagos‘danfo’ drivers are notorious for contravening traffic laws. For instance, the BRT lanes are strictly meant for BRT buses but ‘danfo’ drivers, in their characteristics style, have continued to flout this rule with impunity. Aside this, most of them drive against traffic, carry more than the required number of passengers, stop to pick passengers at un-designated places, over speed among many others terrible acts. Whenever they are apprehended by relevant officials for such acts, they simply resort to harassing, and even beating up the hapless officials. They act in such unruly manner that makes nonsense of the law of the land. In Lagos, impunity is a way of life for the ‘danfo’ drivers whose reckless attitude on the road has become quite legendary.

    Like most cosmopolitan cities across the world, Lagos experiences gridlock which is popularly referred to in local parlance as ‘go slow’. Though, the Lagos traffic jam occurs as a result of many factors, it is, however, really worsened by human factors. Human induced actions that complicate traffic hassles in the State include deliberately driving in an unsafe or threatening manner, illegal parking, street and roadside trading, driving against traffic, making illegal U turn and disobeying traffic lights and other traffic instructions.

    One significant truth that is always ignored is that failure of motorists, particularly commercial bus drivers, to obey simple traffic rules and regulations often lead to traffic snarl that occasionally cripple socio-economic activities in the metropolis. Sadly, traffic chaos has severe consequences on the socio-economic landscape of the state. These include economic losses arising from delays, diminished productivity, wasted energy, environmental degradation and a diminished standard of living. Other outcomes are missed appointments, higher fuel bill, decreased productivity and diverse health challenges. This, no doubt, poses great threat to the State’s viability as a decent place to live, visit and invest.

    With time, especially with an effective and efficient  mass transit system in place, the Lagos state government should save our souls by gradually phasing out commercial buses on major roads in the metropolis. Public transportation is too important and strategic to be committed into the hands of unruly and disorganized set of individuals. This could jeopardize drive for foreign and local investments in the State. The traffic situation of every city determines the volume of investment that is attracted to the city. No sane investor would want to put his money in a place that is renowned for irresponsible traffic behaviour. It is, therefore, imperative, all other things being equal, for authorities concerned in Lagos State to address the nagging question of the nuisance of commercial bus drivers in the State, once and for all. To avoid any public outcry that such step might attract, especially from transport unions, willing commercial bus owners and drivers could be incorporated into the enlarged BRT system to avoid job losses.

    Consequently, there is an urgent need to expand the operational scope of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system. Though the system does not use all the features of some of the renowned BRT systems across the world, it still has many advantages over a traditional bus system. Universally, the BRT system has the capability of moving huge numbers of people from one place to the other at a time in a faster and more convenient way. The system operates on the concept of utilizing dedicated lanes in areas where competition with highway traffic would be greatest while it makes use of existing highways and roads in areas that are less congested in order to reduce cost. According to the Lagos Metropolitan Transport Authority, LAMATA, by 2009 the BRT system has lifted over 52million passengers.

    The BRT scheme, if well expanded and strategically developed, could help in drastically reducing traffic chaos in the State. A first step towards achieving this would be to inject new busses into the fleet of the scheme. Once this is done, the next strategy would be to create more routes across the State for the scheme to meet more needs. In creating these new routes, priority should be given to areas with greater population density such as Badagry, Mowe-Ibafo axis, Sango-Ota axis, Alimosho among others. Also, the BRT scheme could be planned to include commuting within short distances within a particular local government or location.

    The efficiency with which people, goods and services can move from one point to the other largely determines the quality of life of a society. Hence, every investment and every effort geared towards sanitising the sector is not misplaced.

    • Omojoye wrote in from Palmgroove, Lagos

     

  • Ambode, Danfo drivers and The Economist

    First, we must observe that Lagos is a mega city with the associated mega-city problems similar to those you find in New York, Los Angeles, Cairo, Sao Paulo or Mumbai. It attracts all manners of people with deviant behaviour. In nearly all cases, most immigrants are out to eke out a living by taking advantage of the opportunities the city offers. In pursuant of their objectives, they often exhibit deviant behaviours. The immigrants despite their lack of sense of commitment to their host communities often exhibit sense of entitlement. But something positive has always come out of productive engagements between successive past Lagos State governments and the urban poor.

    As Governor, Jakande doubled the number of schools in Lagos, introduced free education and built low income houses. Former Governor Tinubu expanded the free education and free health programmes building General Hospitals in nearly all the Local Government Areas. He integrated the once notorious ‘Molue’ drivers through Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) ownership structure or as members of LASTMA. Fashola sustained this by turning the urban miscreants known as ‘area boys’ to environmentalists. There is no doubt the ongoing encounter between ‘Danfo’ drivers and their senior partners LASTMA, whose members according to Mike Akinyuli, a security consultant, own about 70% of the buses we see on the roads’, will produce identical result.

    The current encounter between Ambode’s government, ‘danfo’ drivers, LASTMA, their senior partners, and The Economist is about Lagos traffic gridlock which has become a source of nightmare to Lagos motorists.

    First, long before The Economist’s report on state of insecurity  and traffic in Lagos, Governor Ambode, a man said to be very cerebral, had during a retreat for his new team, identified ‘traffic congestion as a daily challenge with highly undesirable socio-economic and environmental effects, increasing stress and pollution levels which reduce several productivity’ for Lagosians. As a response he was also quoted to have said the state was ‘set to introduce a world-class traffic information and management system to drastically change the face of Lagos traffic’.

    But The Economist says  ‘the increased traffic gridlock was due to the governor’s new traffic policies which has encouraged a culture of impunity in Nigeria’s most populous city’, and went to aver that the policy was ‘being sabotaged by the traffic controllers banned from impounding cars’. In the opinion of the newsmagazine, that was a failure of governance.

    The government has spent the greater part of last week engaged in needless defence describing the report as “reckless”, “slanderous” and “ill-conceived.” But Joe Igbokwe, the Lagos APC spokesman admitted that the governor’s directive that the traffic managers be more humane was abused and sabotaged by the traffic officers leading to traffic snarls. He added the governor’s expression of ‘deep concern about the feedback from Lagosians whose worries range from security, traffic gridlock and environment itself’; it was obvious the new policies designed to alleviate the sufferings of Lagos residents were yet to yield dividends.

    As at the time of the report, ‘danfo’ drivers had turned the highways into bus stop and traffic officers were nowhere to be seen leaving motorists at the mercy of lawless ‘danfo’ drivers. The only thing the governor and his team can therefore quarrel with was The Economist’s conclusion that the shaky take off of the policy amounts to failure of governance. And in this regard, the magazine is entitled to its opinion despite Lagos State’s argument that such conclusion did not indicate application of sufficient intellectual rigour. That the governor said “We are repairing potholes and we are deploring more men to ensure the free flow of traffic”, or that “We have already hit the ground running’, did not preclude The Economist from expressing its cynicism or oblige it to share the governor’s optimism until those efforts bring forth dividends.

    It is as if the government expects sympathy from The Economist even after its own admission, that ‘recalcitrant traffic officers refused to carry out a directive by their employer”, or expects the defeated PDP looking for relevance not to exploit the current traffic crisis to declare triumphantly that “the worsening traffic situation in the state is a reflection of Governor Ambode’s inability to manage the state and a reflection of his unpreparedness to lead”.

    Since it is not likely that Lagosians will write off the governor they elected shortly after constituting his team based on jaundiced report of a magazine or comments of opposition looking for relevance, the government should be more concerned with finding answers to the deviant behaviour of ‘danfo’ drivers. Why for instance will a ‘danfo’ driver with full compliments of passengers take one way while oncoming vehicles scramble to avoid head on collision?

    Asiwaju Bola Tinubu who initiated the laudable LASTMA scheme back in 2000 had initially thought some of the deviant motorists especially “Molue drivers” were sick and doomed inmates of psychiatric hospitals. Not a few I was told, were forced to visit such hospitals. Fashola saw heavy unreasonable fines as deterrence. An exasperated ex-Governor Fashola once reminded the LASTMA traffic officers that their primary responsibility was to make the traffic flow and if impounding cars will derail that objective, the deviant motorist should be let off the hook. But both the ‘dreamer and the actualiser’, by applying inputs of intellectuals changed their perception at the end.

    It might be useful for the Ambode’s government to borrow a leaf from the findings of Vidal de la Blache a French Cultural Geographer and Lucien Febvre, a French Historian who in their theories of ‘environmental determinism and environmental possibilism,’ tell us that man is the master of his environment. Nature advises us of options available before us which we exploit to our own advantage or ignore at our own peril and eternal damnation. The ‘danfo’ driver is a thinking animal and not a caged goat. If he needs to make 30 runs between Ojota and Berger bus top, a distance of about five kilometres which should naturally take about 10 minutes in order to meet his obligation to the owner of the bus and gets his own extra to take care of his family as one who survives on a subsistence primitive consumption, he is not likely going to spend two hours on 10 minutes journey. As a rational being, he will look for alternative and that may include taking one-way if he can get away with it.

    If however we think he is not mad, but on a suicide mission, his passengers who held on to their breath as he manoeuvres dangerously facing an oncoming vehicle are not about to commit mass suicide. Among the passengers, we probably have a young nursing mother scheduled to pick her four months toddler from a day-care centre that has a closing time; a newscaster programmed to be on air at a scheduled time or a poor miracle-seeker rushing to meet evening service in one of the numerous churches dotting slum areas of Lagos who will fit the identity of a man apprehended by the governor driving on ‘one way’ and claimed he was rushing to church.

    ‘Danfo’ drivers, their LASTMA senior colleagues, share the same fate with peddlers of fake products on the streets of urban centres and the AK47-wielding cattle herdsmen marooned in the forest for over 10 months. It is all about the struggle for the survival of the fittest. And in this struggle, the privileged often define the state of sanity or insanity of the underprivileged.

    There is however a promise of hope in the ongoing engagement since those who worked along with Tinubu and Fashola to decree the sanity of those once regarded as mad ‘Molue’ drivers who are today part owners of BRT buses and the wasting away miscreants called area boys who are today celebrated environmental ambassadors. The team can ensure those currently proclaimed mad ‘danfo’ drivers get integrated into the Light rail system or aided to own their own commercial farms.