Nigerian Leaders Lame Excuses For Banning Okada

Nigerian leaders are not content with  stealing our commonwealth in their primitive accumulation of wealth, they are also determined to punish the masses to bout. The wickedness of the Nigerian leaders know no bounds. Capitalising on the docility of the masses who literally bear their burdens without complain, but with eyes and faith placed only in God, the merciless kleptomaniac leaders are now bent on pushing the masses to the wall and the reaction could be catastrophic if this madness is not halted immediately.

In Lagos State, okada that is one of the few means of sustenance of the youths and the not so young in their quest to cater for their families has been outlawed in several parts of the commercial capital of Nigeria. This law was allowed to exist not minding that the government of the day has no effective programme to address the job needs of the army of school leavers and graduates being sent to the streets annually by our educational institutions. The lame excuse by the Lagos State government for passing this anti-people law was that there are lots of accidents that are attributed to the commercial motorcyclists popularly called okada. But the same government have not made laws to ban the use of cars because across the country including Lagos there are even more accidents and deaths on the highways caused by reckless driving. But they will not do that because that will stop them from using their many SUVs and other fancy cars acquired through questionable means. Ordinarily a caring leadership would have put in place a regulatory framework to address the challenges posed in the operation of okada instead of banning it. It is even most nauseating when it is realised that the same okada riders were used by the governor of Lagos State, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, when he was campaigning for both first and second terms in office as outridders that cleared the road for him and other leaders at each campaign stop overs. Having used the okada riders and their network to ride to power he decided to dump them in the typical elites’ style of use and dump. But I have no doubt that this decision will be dire to the residents of Lagos as cases of armed robbery and other criminal tendencies will most certainly skyrocket.

Lagos incidentally is not alone in our leaders conspiracy to do away with okada and take away even the miserable food that it put on the dinning tables at the homes of the okada riders by a leadership berift of job creating ideas but well learned in the art of money laundering and primitive stealing of things that they don’t even need. In many parts of the North a region battling with insurgency, okada has been banned or their movement restricted because of the alleged use of okada to committ crimes. But strangely the Boko Haram operatives use sophisticated cars like the SUVs that our leaders  ‘worship’ in carrying out many of the suicide bombings in the country including the recent one at Kaduna, but you will never see your excellencies advocating the ban of SUVs because it would affect their joy of driving through the ruins of the rundown neighbourhoods they oppress with their ill gotten wealths. The other day I told a taxi driver that their right so far to operate in Abuja is because Boko Haram has never used taxis to carry out suicide bombing in Abuja and the day that will happen may mark the end of taxis operating within the capital city.

Just yesterday(October 30, 2012), gunmen  killed 18 people in Kabaru village in Zamfara state. The gunmen were said to have descended on the village with motor bikes. Given this development I will not be surprised if the government of Zamfara State decides to ban okada in the state, as if robbers have not been using fancy cars to terrorise people before in that state.

Nigeria’s over pampered leaders whose apetite for conspicious consumption have little time for deep thinking thus they resort to  quick fix measures to address the insecurity in the country. And all they could come up with is to ban okada when a more effective measure would have been to intensify effort at intelligence gathering which is the most effective way to nip crime in the bud.

Make no mistake about it, the banning of okada to make way for the leaders to ride their fancy cars without hinderance will cause them to pay the price by sleeping but not resting. The robbers they breed will not allow them to enjoy their ill gotten wealth and they would wish that they endure some discomfort on the streets caused by okada riders than be at home without being sure of seeing the next day.

It is the wicked policies of the leaders that have made the robbers to be so destructive of lives in their operations. Already condemned to death by their miserable conditions as a result of the policies of our leaders, the robbers show no mercy to an uncaring society when they set out in their operations.

This is therefore a warning to our leaders that the ant-people policies they are making is breeding army of disgruntled elements that will continue to make Nigeria one of the most unsafe places to do business or raise a family in the world. The policy of banning okada should stop and laws made to regulate their operation in the interest of the operators and their passengers.