For a metropolitan city like Lagos, the heavy reliance on alternative means of transportation like motorcycles (popularly known as okada) and tricycles (otherwise known as keke marwa) is worthy of note. These smaller vehicles not only make life a little more bearable for the city’s commuters who cannot afford cars, they also help in navigating those roads that are largely impassable thanks to factors like erosion and poor maintenance.
More specifically, motorcycles provide respite for the city’s working class population when they get caught up in that “customary” early morning and late evening gridlock which makes commuting to and from work significantly difficult for them on weekdays.
It is hardly surprising, then, that the mere thought of the disappearance of these vehicles would bear the semblance of a nightmare for the average Lagos resident.
On Monday, January 27, 2020, the Lagos State government announced their decision to ban the operation of motorcycles and tricycles across several local government areas in the state. Predictably, the news has not been well-received by the general populace, and in the days following, a debate on the rationality of certain government policies has raged on social media.
One fact that bears mentioning is that the ban, which takes effect from February 1, also extends to motorcycles owned by Gokada and Opay, two mobile transport service companies that made their way into Lagos only a few months ago. In simple terms, Gokada and Opay could be described as the motorcycle’s answers to Uber and Bolt, and in more than a few ways both companies have provided a little ease to the infamous transportation system that characterises the city of Lagos.
Following this sudden and far-from-favourable development, there are questions that beg for urgent answers: what happens to the respective agreements entered into with the Lagos State government by these companies? What happens to the $170 million invested into the workings of Opay in Lagos by the Opera group? More poignantly, what happens to the agreement that was struck between Opay and MC Oluomo in November 2019, which served as an indirect intervention when Opay’s cyclists were being harassed and extorted by members of the Nigerian Union Of Road Transport Workers (NURTW)?
Away from multinational companies and fancy helmets, what is the fate of logistics and delivery companies who heavily rely on dispatch riders to provide their services?
From heavy taxation to exorbitant levies, from unannounced demolitions to arbitrary policies, there is a general sentiment that the Lagos State government sets out to frustrate the efforts of entrepreneurs in operating legitimate business, and this ban, if fully implemented, would do little to assuage those feelings: there are enterprises that would literally crumble if the state government follows through with this.
There is also the not-so-small matter of how the ban would have an adverse effect on movement across the state. There are routes that can only be accessed by motorcycles and tricycles: should people who live in these areas be cut off from urban life?
There have been arguments that border on how the ban has been necessitated by the reckless nature of the cyclists as well as their brazen disregard for traffic regulations, but what are the alternatives? How do people get home from work when movement on Third Mainland Bridge or Eko Bridge grinds to a halt on a humid Friday evening? Should people who are already physically and mentally drained by the gruelling nature of corporate Lagos, have to go home on foot and further pile up their misery?
Those in favour of this proposed ban have also argued that some motorcyclists and tricycle riders have used these vehicles to aid their criminal activities. Such a line of thought is largely speculative at its best, ironic in its basic sense, and amounts to faulty logic at its worst.
This is because the operation of motorcycles and tricycles has provided employment to many youths across the state, and making a decision to stop them from riding is basically putting them out of work. No one needs elaborate explanations to figure out how unemployment tends to be directly proportional to an increase in crime rates.
Decisions of this nature have a way of painting the state’s policymakers as either detached from reality, or brazenly insensitive to the plight of its citizens. The state is in the middle of a town planning and infrastructural crisis, but banning motorcycles is like attempting to bandage a wounded limb already infected by gangrene.
There are ways to expand Lagos into a megacity, but limiting the transportation options of commuters and ultimately causing difficulty in intra-city movement is not one of them. Traffic rules should be enforced, and unruly riders should be apprehended, but there is more to lose if the baby is thrown out with the bath water.
If any executive decision ever needed a review, this would be one.