The Lagos State Government announced that from Saturday, February 1, 2020, commercial bikes, otherwise known as okada, and tricycles, also known as Keke Marwa, would be banned from operating on bridges, expressways and some inner-city roads of Greater Lagos.
Greater Lagos, the most urban part of Lagos State, comprises the sweep from Ikeja, through Ikorodu Road, Surulere, Apapa, Lagos Island, Victoria Island, and Lekki — minus relatively rural Ibeju, of course.
Whilst okada and Marwa have been banned from the entire Eko, and most of Ikeja Divisions, they are free to range in the entire Badagry, Ikorodu and Epe Divisions, the more rural parts of the state.
If you were generous, you’d describe these rural areas as Lagos suburbia. For those who may not know, Lagos State is made up of five divisions, namely, Ikeja, Badagry, Ikorodu, Lagos or Eko, and Epe.
Initial explanation given by the state government for restricting okada and Marwa to certain areas of the state, was the nuisance they constituted on the roads, the traffic and accidents they caused, ignorance of highway codes by the operators, and their use, sometimes, as robbery getaway vehicles.
Then, the objections to the ban and restrictions began to gain strong expression: Commuters, who were stranded on the roads, thought government didn’t think it through before executing the policy.
But when they started to observe that “kabukabu,” or unmarked cabs, and micro buses were actually coming to pick passengers from designated okada and Marwa bus stops, they figured the government had engaged those emergency transport providers.
They felt some relief — until all the vehicles practically hiked the fares, as if they were in a conspiracy, inspired by the government, against the people of Lagos. The hike in fares then compelled many commuters to the discomfort of having to trek.
If you have seen the cartoon of a cat dressed up in coattails when going out to work in the morning, but looking like Broda Shaggy, after being worsted by the hectic traffic at the end of the workday, you will understand how punishing the new traffic experience can be.
Because the emergency measures were still inadequate, the commuters complained that the 65 new Bus Rapid Transit vehicles that the government claimed to have added to its fleet were not adequate.
The commuters also thought that maybe the 550, or so, buses that the government promised to add should have been on the ground before the restriction was put in place. It’s called the rule of first principles.
Remember that the Federal Government had temporarily discontinued running the shuttle trains that ferried commuters in and out of Lagos along the Lagos-Ota Expressway because of rehabilitation works.
Government’s argument that it wanted to ease the traffic seems to have been defeated when private car owners, who hitherto used commuter vehicles, brought out their vehicles, and joined the “kabukabu” hustle.
While the traffic on Ikorodu Road may have become a little freer at certain times of the day, there is a heavy clog in the Ikeja and Lekki zones. The traffic on the Lagos-Ota Expressway remains a choke point.
In response to criticisms that maybe the policy was implemented in a haste, the Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, offered another explanation, which he must have thought should silence the critics.
He claimed that the ban and restrictions were done for security reasons. And maybe because he didn’t go into too much detail, some began to speculate that the influx of aliens into Lagos State, in the guise of transport operators, was a security threat.
Despite other arguments that these young men are essentially economic migrants, who have come to Lagos to escape poverty, the enduring theory is that many of them, whose ancestral homes are not from Southern Nigeria, and some not even Nigerians at all, are sleeper cells waiting for activation for a jihad at an appointed time in the future.
Not even assurances by Sultan Sa’ad Abubakar of Sokoto, that there is no such Islamic agenda, seem to be satisfactory. In fact, protagonists of this theory think that, in banishing the okada and Marwa operators to rural Lagos, Sanwo-Olu defeated his security justification for the policy.
They argue, quite justifiably though, that if these alien young men have been profiled, or at least feared, to be security risks to Lagos, why not banish them completely out of the state? That should be the logical action.
By banishing these so-called aliens to these rural zones, the governor just handed them a weapon to defeat his security initiative. A more imaginative policy must be evolved to combat this security threat — if indeed it’s a security threat.
Those resident in the more rural parts of Lagos, who have now become unwitting hosts of this horde, wonder if Sanwo-Olu thinks their lives do not matter like those who live in the more urban Greater Lagos.
They too have a point, and the governor should give further clarification so that these bona fide citizens of Lagos State do not think that the government does not value their lives, with this policy that some have described as reverse discrimination.
Though you wonder why everything must end up in an argument, you must also recognise that all lives in Lagos State must count, regardless of where they are resident, and Sanwo-Olu must urgently consider the implications for future elections.
If the idea is to prevent demographics that can skew future elections in favour of alien interests, he just helped in defeating that political move. Alimosho-Egbeda, one of the areas that have just received an influx of these aliens, always provides decisive votes in Lagos State governorship elections.
But having said these, no one should discount the claims or disclosures made by Sanwo-Olu: He shouldn’t be fibbing with such an important matter, as security is the most important assignment of any government.
The importance of security has been further accentuated by the South-West Nigeria’s Operation Amotekun, and its equivalents that have reportedly been launched in other geopolitical zones of Nigeria.
Something that Sanwo-Olu and his government need to do urgently is to commission a study, to find out from commuters in Lagos State, how this new policy is affecting their movements, and their livelihoods. He needs to also ask them how they think the hardship should be eliminated, or at least, mitigated.
And then the Big Cahuna is that he must also find the funds, through public, and, or, private sources, to complete the Lagos Metroline, which the military government of, ironically, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), truncated in 1984. It must also be expanded because the Lagos metropolis has extended beyond what it was in 1984.
The advantages of the Metroline are mass movement of commuters, fewer road accidents, and elimination of choke points that usually lead to gridlock. No one has yet estimated the volume of businesses lost to man-hours wasted in the traffic every working day in Lagos.
And, ahem, the governor should not buckle to the pressure of those who want a downward review of the fine imposed on those who brazenly flout the traffic rules of Lagos. Many drivers in Lagos think they should obey traffic laws only in the breach.
Somebody should knock some discipline into these offenders, but also take urgent steps to move Lagos with less agony.
