OKADAMEN AND CRIME

TONY ITA ETIM, PORT HARCOURT

OKADA RIDERS AND CRIME

Many states across Nigeria are busy making laws to reduce the operation of commercial motorcycle riders or out right ban on their activities. Okada riders are being blame for the increase in the crime wave in the country. Because hoodlums now use motorcycles as their means of transportation during criminal operations, all motorcycle riders are labeled criminals. The okada are now demonized.

The continuous operation of okada is now seen as a social problem in Nigeria. The okada riders are demons that must be exorcise from the nations roads and streets. Every government wants to chase okada off our roads to create a free flow of traffic and reduce crime. Getting okada off the roads would have been a wonderful idea but the various governments have not tackle the social problem of unemployment that gave birth to the okada business. Who have been the beneficiaries of NAPEP and other poverty alleviation programmes ince 1999 outside party stalwarts and some civil servants? The politicians do not even allow their “boys” to benefit from these programmes. Why should a serving civil servant also be a beneficiary of a poverty alleviation programme?

That criminals operating from a motorcycle rob and assassinate does not warrant the outright ban that these governments are planning. After all, it was not okada riders that snatched the $16 billion dollars that was meant for the power sector. In fact, put all the money and property that have been stolen by criminals operating on motorcycles it is not up to this amount. Bola Ige, A.K. Dikibo, Marshaal Harry were not killed by people using motorcycles. One is not justifying the negative activities of okada riders (one has been a victim several times) but labeling all of them as criminal is a faulty and hasty generalization. Like in every profession or business there are always the criminal elements. And government has not disbanded the Nigeria Police Force because some of them collect money from motorists or bail bond. The Nigerian Custom Service is still intact despite its notoriety as a house of corruption. A criminal will remain a criminal except for a divine intervention? When the okada business is banned the criminal elements would look for another means of expressing their criminal tendencies. More criminals may emerge as the devil finds a job for an idle man. “Man must survive and man must wak.” Some of the okadamen after the ban may turn against the society and the crime we want to reduce would increase. Those planning to ban okada should think about the economic dislocation that such a policy would cause. After banning okada won’t Nigerians be allowed to own motorcycles? Can’t a criminal use a private motorcycle to rob or commit any crime. Government should rather ban the use of motorcycles in Nigerian as a panacea to crime because wherever there is bike there would be crime

The Nigerian politician does not want to get okada off the roads because he love the masses and do not want them to lose their limbs or be murder by reckless okada ride. But having used the okada to achieve his political aim he knows what a monster he made out of okadaman. Our politicians are now afraid of the monsters the created on their way to political offices. Most of the thugs during elections are recruited from the ranks of okada, motor park touts and undergraduates cultists. The politician cannot pretends to love Nigerians more than themselves if the masses have alternatives to Okada or tired of motorcycles they will surely stop patronizing commercial motorcycles and that would be the end of that business. Please give the people an option before banning okada.

Getting okada off the streets of Nigeria is a very simple action if only those in authorities are ready to do what is right. Most of the okada riders see the business as a means to an end and not the end itself. They took to the business just to keep them busy and reduce the economic burden on their families until something better come their way. The okada riders should be seen as Nigerians who have responded to calls by various governments that Nigerians should be self-employed and less dependent on government. And where the okada riders operate outside their state of origin or local government area, they should be seen as investors who should be given some incentives. Many of the okada riders are university graduates who have no jobs and are do not want to beg or be a burden to someone. They have to do something to survive. I know of an electrical engineering graduate who paid his school fees through okada business and two years after graduation and no job he is still in the business. Give him a job today and he will drop his bike and be off the streets. Government should create jobs opportunities to take care of okada riders who are employable while those who are not employable should be given preference when government are acquiring taxis and buses for public transportation.

Commercial motorcycle business is a product of a need; would government meet this need before the ban? In January 2007, former governor of Cross Rivers State, Mr. Donald Duke acquired some Peugeot cars for taxi operations in the state, as at today less than 10 of those vehicles are seen on the streets of Calabar, except for the long buses. The others have ended up in private garages. Yes! Those who are keeping them are for the cars but the purpose was to ease public transportation and not to increase the numbers of vehicles in the fleets of a few public servants and party stalwarts. Also former governor Peter Odili got more than 400 Peugeot cars for public transportation in the state, especially Port Harcourt but today less than 50 are seen in the streets of the Garden City, wherever these vehicles are, are the performing the purpose that they were acquired for?

No sane man will choose hardship when there is comfort. Port Harcourt, Calabar, Uyo and many other state capitals and cities in the country do not have well mapped out taxi routes. And where these routes exist, the conditions of the roads are so bad that no transporter would dare put his vehicle there. Government does not need any law to send okada off the streets, all that is needed is an efficient and reliable public transportation system and the market forces would determine that fate of commercial motorcycle business.

Agreed that when one finger has oil it may soil the other fingers. That few okada people are involved in crimes or used be criminals during operations is not enough reasons to ban okada. Also the argument that more deaths and injuries are recorded daily from okada related accident is not tenable. The Nigerian road user whether private car owner, truck or tanker driver, okada or biycle rider is a terror on the road, any time, any day. It is in our national psyche, the okada men should not be made scapegoats. They should not be punish for a national pastime of Nigerian road users. After all they are taking after our governors and other public officer holders whose convoys run above the recommended national speed limit of 100 kilometres per hour. Despite several deaths that have resulted from convoy-induced accidents what have been done to check over speeding by public office holders?

Chinua Achebe said that those who palm nuts were cracked for them by a benevolent spirit should remember to be humble. The legislators in the various Houses of Assembly across the country should remember that as at May 1999 three quarters of them were patrons of Okada. Some of them could not even afford okada fare then not to talk of buying a motorcycle. And a good number of them rode okada to their inaugurations as honourables. We know many of the today’s honourables who have never had a formal employment and if not for the Nigerian political process they would have still remain in the unemployment market. So they should not see themselves as better than the okadamen. The okada riders should be left alone while government should solve the problem that give birth to okada before thinking of getting them off the streets. Tackle the problems from the roots and the fruits of such trees would naturally die.