Okada Riders Return To Arewa

The ban on commercial motorcycles and tricycles by the Lagos State government commences today.

A truck laden with okada was seen on Friday night leaving the Ijegun-Satelite for North.

When Vanguard News spoke with one of them, who identified himself as Muhammed on reason behind leaving Lagos, he said, “We have been leaving since December 2019. It pays to carry our Okada back to Arewa with N11,000 rather than allow Police demand N20,000 and we won’t be assured of getting our bikes back.

Yesterday, riders of ride hailing services – Gokada and Max.NG, on Friday staged a peaceful protest to appeal to the Lagos State government to regulate their operations instead of banning them.

One of the riders lamented “most of us are graduates, I’m not a Yahoo boy, I’m not into cyber crime. Don’t push the youths to the extreme because when it happens, you know what will happen.”

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There were chants of “No be only rich get Lagos, we are ready to work, give us back our jobs, we don’t want poverty, we beg of you, please Nigerians regulate, I will never be a beggar in life.”

Notable was the absence of Opay riders at the scene. One Gokada rider pinned the blame on the introduction of the Opay service, saying “please tell Sanwo-Olu that it is Opay that caused this problem.”

Some of the banners read: “Our jobs matter”, “Family man, not ruffian”, “No helmet, no ride! Ask my passengers”, “Over 2 million trips, zero fatality”, “I no ger 9 lives, I no dey put myself or passenger for risk”, “Very soon poverty will be a crime in Lagos

This morning, police officers were seen with patrol bans on Oshodi-Apapa express looking out for defaulters.