•Charges FG to checkmate influx of non-Nigerians
Lagos State government through its Environmental and Special Offences Enforcement Unit otherwise known as Task Force has impounded 2,300 motorcycles from their riders in the last 10 months.
Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu had last year banned okada operations in 10 out of 20 Local Councils.
The councils are Kosofe, Oshodi-Isolo, Shomolu, Mushin, Eti-Osa, Ikeja, Surulere, Lagos Island, Lagos Mainland, and Apapa.
The state also inaugurated Anti-Okada Squad to further enforce the clampdown on commercial motorcyclists in the state, which is in line with the Transport Sector Reform Law (TSRL), 2018.
From the time of the ban till date, a total of 7,500 motorcycles estimated at about N30 billion have been impounded and crushed accordingly by the state government, but that has not served as enough deterrent to the riders.
Despite successes recorded in the enforcement, the Task force said enforcing the law has become herculean with the operators clashing with the enforcement team and at times resulting in deaths.
Spokesperson for the Task Force, Gbadeyan Abdulkareem, told The Guardian that the seeming unsuccessful enforcement on motorcycles was due largely to the ubiquitous nature of the riders and their ability to meander through any known channels.
Gbadeyan said the enforcement was hectic and therefore, far from a tea party.
He noted that it was possible to arrest 10 armed robbers than arresting one Okada rider, adding that the more they were arrested, the more ubiquitous they became.
According to him, most of the riders are non-Nigerians, who sauntered into the country through our numerous porous border routes into the country and because they already had the financial backing of their kinsmen who were already into the business in the country, they always bounce back even though their Okada had been seized and crushed.
Gbadeyan, who noted that a total number of 2,300 motorcycles have been impounded and crushed in the last 10 months, called for a total ban on use of okada as a means of transportation as the only way out of putting a final full stop to the menace of the riders in the state.
He also called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to entreat the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) to rise up to the occasion of checkmating the influx of non-Nigerians into the country.
He said: “If you ask me, arresting and crushing the Okada is the most severe penalty to these people. The reason I am saying this is because the more you arrest, impound and crush their Okada, the more they come on the streets. And you know, the most annoying thing is that most of these people are non-Nigerians, they are from the West African sub-regions. The only way that I think it will be favorable for Lagos is to keep on arresting and crushing the Okada.”
