Stop this panic: Create a workable policy for “Okada” operators, By Vincent Chuks Igbinedion

On a trip home to Oligie-Igbanke in Orhionmwon Local Government Area of Edo State sometime in 2014, at the Uromi junction where there were motorcycles to convey me to home, I got stranded because then Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State banned the commercial motorcycles (popularly called Okada as used throughout this intervention), the previous day.

Be informed that the Uromi junction at Agbor in Delta State is a major resting point for commuters from the East and part of the South-South to the Northern parts of Nigeria. And any road leading to the Northern part of Nigeria, of course, is a major artery for the transportation of all kinds of agricultural goods. The persistent neglect of a portion of the road from Agbor junction up to Ottah in Igbanke just a few kilometres away has bled Nigeria of billions of naira in food losses, in a country that is grappling with the pangs of lamentable hunger.

Vehicles coming from the North with agricultural produce that decide to seek better alternatives could add another 200 kilometres going through Benin City if they choose not to do a detour from Ewu to face the carnage that is Uromi junction at Agbor. However, some who dare spend up to two weeks on the stretch from Oligie to Agbor junction, a stretch of just about five kilometres. And some never made it to the East as most vehicles somersault and spill their prized cargo on the roads, causing more panic for other road users.

In the face of all these uncertainties, hearing that Governor Okowa banned okada riders from operating on the Delta State stretch of the Uromi – Amukpe highway was a disservice to some of us who hail from Oligie, Igbanke, Ekpon and beyond (all in Edo State). However, the culture of banning today, unbanning tomorrow and re-banning the day after has neither helped the transportation industry in Nigeria, nor benefitted the commuters who have the harrowing experience of daily commute to places of economic activities.

In the last couple of weeks, this writer has witnessed three scenarios of officials of the Lagos State government coming hard on the okada operators. And they come real hard!!! Like the German Secret State Police (GESTAPO) of the Nazi era, they stalk their victims in their target location and swoop in on them, cordon off the area and “arrest” as many motorcycles as their vehicles could convey. A couple of weeks ago, they operated at First Gate bus stop on the LASU – Isheri expressway; about two days later, they were at Iyana School bus stop on the same axis, on Monday, July 6^th, they were at Iyana Ishashi on the Lagos – Badagry expressway, while on Tuesday, July 7^th, they operated at Iyana Era, just about two kilometres away.

It is universally acknowledged that necessity is the mother of invention. And the human capacity to survive under any circumstances is legendary. What is of utmost appeal is the capacity for things to reinvent themselves, especially in Lagos State in the face of uncertainty and a lack of viable alternatives. Do you expect a worker who closes from work at Alausa the seat of the state government and lives in Badagry to travel through the snarling traffic that would make him be on the road for five hours; or should he take the okada that could make him do the journey in one and half hours so that he could take his deserved rest and be able to show up in the office tomorrow? That is, if he could afford the exorbitant cost of taking or “flying” the okada, in the first place.

The first question would be why does he have to live in Badagry when he could have taken up residence in Ikeja or other satellite towns like Egbeda, Igando or Agege? The rents are prohibitive and in a country where government only pays lip service to building houses, and those actually built are too priced beyond the reach of the average workers, then Badagry is it.

No sane minded person ordinarily would have a better alternative and choose what will endanger his life. It is taking the Lagos State government about 20 years, and three governors to boot, to construct a light rail line from Lagos Island to Okokomaiko, a distance of about 20 kilometres. Do the arithmetic and know why okada business will continue to thrive despite the GESTAPO approach to its elimination and permanent obliteration.

There are multiple factors that fuel the okada business so, try as the Lagos State government, and other state governmenta would, it is like trying to sink a calabash in water: it will always find its way to the surface. Man has the inexorable instinct for survival and survival is the thing. If Nigerian governments from time past have been doing developmental planning, putting infrastructure in place, and making the environment conducive for businesses to thrive, who would go into okada business like Sanni Sanunu in Oko-Afor on the Lagos – Badagry expressway who is from Katsina State and a graduate of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria?

Sanni is lucky because he is making choices, hence okada business is a place holding employment for him because according to one of his business partners, he was “given police work” but he refused, preferring Immigration, Customs or Navy. How many Nigerians have such privileges?

Far beyond this is the fact of uncontrolled population. It is trite to ask a gentleman governor like Mr. Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu what conversations he has with his fellow Northern governors when he hears that one of them is planning a mass wedding for his indigenes. News broke recently that one of them is planning a mass wedding for 1,500 couples. Have we done the arithmetic, again: that could generate 6,000 children in the next six years at the rate of four children per couple! That would be 6,000 children that might not see the four walls of a school; children that would have bowls in hand to beg at Lagos bus stops; 6,000 children that may end up as raw materials to be recruited as political thugs; children that could become susceptible to be employed as bandits, kidnappers and terrorists. Better still, when the need for survival becomes the rule rather than the exception, resort to okada business beckons.

Either way one may look at it, the okada business has become an albatross to the Lagos State government. It has come to stay, and it seems it will be around for a while, so the best the state government could to do is to formulate a policy to refine and streamline their operations, and give it a modern face. Otherwise, your process feeds into the conspiracy factor which is that there are container loads of motorcycles on the high sea waiting to be discharged. The state government has to find a way to take out what are currently on the roads so that those being expected would have enough space. How funny, witty and cunny Nigerians can be!

Come to think of it, how do you explain that the three raids mentioned above led to the “harvest” of over 300 motorcycles? And these happened in just one local government area. Assuming similar raids are carried out in about 19 local government areas in the state simultaneously, Alausa will become one huge warehouse of seized motorcycles. And the counting is still on.

There was an attempt by a company to give okada operations a modern face when one Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu was the governor of Lagos State. What the company was bringing to the table was that all okada riders will be documented and branded with customized helmets, jackets, shin guards, and many more incentives, and they will be issued numbers and routes beyond which they were not to ply. And all these were for free. Other companies were then expected to pay for the branding of these emblems for a fee to enable the parent company recoup its investment.

On the day the programme was launched at the Tafawa Balewa Square in Lagos, Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu was in his elements and the scare on his face was apparent as he allowed the Area Fada, Mr. Charles Oputa (remember Charly Boy?) to convey him around the square like Sylvester Stallone on one of his RAMBO movies. Note that Charly Boy was the leader of okada riders at the time. It suffices to note that the political undertone given the event on that day was the impetus the company needed to pull out of the arrangement! Apparently they could not understand how you fill Tafawa Balewa Square with market women from Badagry and Ikorodu just because a programme on how to make okada business safer was being unveiled.

Do what you may, decree it into extinction, purge the state of its real or imaginary menace, okada business will continue to thrive as long as government programmes promote poverty rather than prosperity. Do you remember what made Ben Ayade, a former governor of Cross River State to weep on national television? It is because he couldn’t come to terms with how and why of government taxing corn roasters, vulcanizers, truck pushers as well as okada riders to fund its extravagance because that is what governance has gravitated to becoming in Nigeria.

To make the programme relatively attractive and modern, governments should profile the okada riders, and not turn it into an all comers affair. There should be a database of the riders, just as there are database of the dial-a-ride drivers who are now growing in arithmetic progression all around the states. Every commercial motorcycle should be registered; the riders should be equipped with modern safety and security gadgets. They should be dressed in reflective jackets that are subject to replacement at regular intervals, and these jackets will be numbered such that the users could be identified easily. For those who decide to engage in misdemeanour, they will be easily identified and appropriate sanctions meted out. We cannot continue to do the same things the same way and expect different results. It is time to think outside the box because there is greater wisdom in  knowing that even when you have absolute powers, you don’t necessarily have to use it absolutely.

My name is Vincent Chuks Igbinedion, and I am just exercising my privilege of “thinking allowed”