Three weeks ago, five lives were lost and twelve more were reportedly in critical condition no thanks to a motorbike (otherwise called okada) induced accident in the Ikeja area of Lagos. Early this year, a photo-journalist with the Lagos Television had his life brutally cut short in an okada accident. Coming closer home now, a decade ago, I lost my grandmother who was brutally knocked down at night time by a motorbike with no headlamps. I once had a huge sum of money snatched from my grip as I emerged from a bank in Calabar, with the dare-devil robber making away with his loot in an okada while two other okada riders saw off the first as they sped through Mary Slessor Avenue.
My sister, who prefers to call herself ‘Vicky Hot’, landed on the tarmac from an okada in Calabar recently as she made her way to school. And only last week, my niece was hit by an okada in Yaba, Lagos as she attempted to wriggle her way past traffic on foot. Chances are that, by the time you are reading this, twenty or more people around the neighbourhood where you live would have been involved in an okada related accident. The emergency wards of hospitals are ample testimonies to the menace the okada has become. Across the country, the okada man seems armed with a license to kill; an accident waiting to happen.
The archetypal okada rider in Lagos is a young man who understands little or no English. He wears a crash helmet he owes to the regulation recently imposed by the Lagos state government. His shirt reeks of sweat and is badly discoloured. He wants to take you to your destination by rigmarole through congested traffic and past cars in a ‘James-Bond’ like fashion. He understands the terrain, he assures you as you suddenly find yourself hopping with him into potholes and craters with your heart in your mouth. He goes past cars with anger; spewing forth venom here and dishing out hate words there. Having signed up to embark on this dangerous ride with him, you cling to the seat with your nerves jangling and your pulse racing. You alight from the bike, thanking God for what was an accident free ride, pay the agreed sum and grateful for making the appointment on time in spite of traffic. He speeds away to make the rounds with another passenger, determination written on his face. He is patronised by people across the social divide for different reasons. Loathe or love him, he is happy to provide a service to society and a dangerous one at that. This is his life, he muses at the end of an adrenaline full day, and he loves it!
Somehow, we have become slaves of the motorbike. We gripe about its dangerous ride, but the next day we are hopping on one across town, determined to make it to work, school or market. We sometimes entrust the lives of our kids to the Rider from hell, who takes them to school and brings them back while we hit at the keyboards of our laptops at work, safe in the knowledge that ‘Junior’ is back home watching his favourite cartoon or playing with friends. The okada, for all its imperfections, it appears, is here to stay. Or is it?
My undergraduate days in Calabar were okada filled ones. I was condemned to riding on at least ten of those before the end of the day. In a city with only a handful of taxis and a sprinkling of buses, the okada was king. Long before the School authorities saw reason to restrict the movement of the bikers to just outside the main gate, we practically rode to the doorstep of lecture halls on a bike. We slept, ate, and breathe the okada. He was our companion as we made it to school and he was there when we were ready to make it home. Calabar’s well tarred roads and broad lanes seemed tailor made for the okada with the few cars in the metropolis keeping a respectable distance.
While we can rightly say that Calabar’s few public buses and taxis is enough incentive for the okada to be unleashed on the populace, Lagos’ seem to be a perennial traffic congestion problem that seems to have defied all logic. Across the country, one thing is clear: the reign of the motorbike would continue unless there is a viable alternative means of transportation. And this is where the government’s failings in the transportation sector as in other sectors of the economy, comes into the equation.
That much was enunciated by the Governor of Lagos State when he sought to address the okada conundrum. Lagos is a peculiar case. There are still a few byways and backstreets where only the okada can reach. What this translates to be is that after alighting from a bus which had been your home for a while owing to chaotic traffic, you would still have to put up with the ubiquitous bike man to take you home or risk doing the rest of the journey on foot with miscreants ready to feast on your handbag or wallet. Is there still a rail system in this country? I shudder anytime I see one of the few remaining trains in Lagos creak past me. Our rail lines are in pitiable state. Most inner-city roads are in such deplorable state that only an okada can brave through same. Some state governments have attempted to give the okada business a new face, what with oversized helmets and registration procedures. But this is only a stop gap measure towards addressing the problem. The long term goal should be to make the okada of such minimal impact in our transportation system in such a manner that it becomes unfashionable with little patronage. What that entails would mean addressing the problems of dilapidated roads, traffic congestions, alternative transportation systems and placing an outright ban on the motorbike plying major routes.
In a country where unemployment looms large, banning the okada could mean further compounding and inflating the unemployment index. It could also pose a concomitant rise in armed robbery cases as a larger percentage of okada riders are ill-equipped for life outside the business of racing across town. A longer term plan should also encapsulate rehabilitation for all okada men with a view to integrating them into a society that can eventually secure for them an alternative means of livelihood.
Two days before I penned this article, a bike man who was racing as though he was been chased by Demons, ran into two kids in Sabo, Yaba, who were making their way to school. I alighted from my car with a few others to tend to their wounds and take them to a nearby hospital. The Rider of the bike, fearing a mob action, had picked himself up and raced out of sight with his next victim probably in his sights.
The okada is holding us hostage in a country where members of the political class are feeding fat on the country’s oil resources.
Jude Egbas is a Company Executive based in
Lagos
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