Ban or transport revolution?

Nigeria needs both urgently! Not just Lagos but the entire country needs an immediate mass multimodal transportation as well as outright ban of Okada and it’s twin instrument of mass destruction, called Keke Napeps! Lord Lugard, the British colonial administrator once observed that the “... material development of Africa may be summed in one word - transport..” If Lugard were alive today, he would have summed up the underdevelopment of Nigeria in one word: collapsed mass-transportation. A port city and financial centre in Africa, and the capital city of Nigeria from amalgamation in 1914 to 1991, Lagos from inception had the magnet to attract crowd.

It’s potential for congestion and overpopulation is long dated. Even at that, the founding fathers and mothers of Lagos would not have imagined the current transportation melt down. A (CNN) report last year puts it better — “Lagos traffic is so snarled and gridlocked that a recent trip from the airport to Ajah, on Lagos Island -- a journey shorter than 50 kilometers -- took me eight hours. That was two hours longer than my flight from Istanbul to Nigeria. Welcome to traffic and travel Lagos-style, where the roads are clogged and millions of commuters are choked with frustration about the daily hassle in Nigeria’s commercial capital and Africa’s fifth largest economy. Disgruntled commuter Yinka Ogunnubi is a typical example, recently tweeting: “Left my house by 5:30 a.m., got to work at 9:10 a.m. This is no longer work, it is suffer-head. Dear Boss, Can I work from home?”Although many in Nigeria find the city alluring, especially for economic reasons, living in Lagos, the third most stressful city in the world, can take a mental toll.

I hail the decision of the state governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu who on Monday, January 27, 2020, announced a ban on the activities of Okada and Keke Napeps in some Local Government Areas like Apapa, Lagos Mainland, Surulere, Eti Osa, Lagos Island, Ikeja effective from February 1, 2020. The ban also reportedly affects Gokada, Oride and other high sounding but miserable ride-hiring devices that take commuters to anywhere including hospitals and early graves but certainly not work places.

The Federal Ministry of Information and Culture commendably organized the 2019 Independence Photo Exhibition with the theme, ”NIGERIA IN THE 1960s” between Tuesday, 24th September and Wednesday 25th September, 2019 at the National Press Centre, Radio House, Area 10 Garki, Abuja. At the event as part of the activities marking Nigeria at 59th, I saw with great delight a photo exhibition depicting rare pictures of profound historic significance.

One picture showed Marina street Lagos in 1956. I could not see a single commercial Okada rider on old Marina street. On the contrary, there were tens of old Beetle cars, indicating that a much poorer colonial Nigeria assigned higher value to quality of life than a richer Nigeria 60 years after! It is bad enough that we virtually destroyed integrated urban transport system of mass transit through roads and railways of the 6Os. But it is simply unacceptable that in 2020, a country of 200 million people allows its citizens to be transported by miserable objects called Okadas and Keke Napeps! Okadas are not just “accidents” waiting to happen, they are daily tragedies! If poorer Ghana does not allow motor bike in Accra city, only poverty of values of ruling class of Nigeria can allow such malady. It is officially criminal to ignore the fact that these motorcycles are murdering their vulnerable users in hundreds nationwide. One of the lowest points of OBJ administration was when he as a President who should know better, elected to become the patron of Okada riders association. He presided over an administration which massively imported with scarce foreign exchange from China environmentally unfriendly motorcycles from China.

Motorbikes churn out 16 times more pollution than cars!, Many state governors turned government houses to dumping cites of pollution-ridden bikes under the dubious poverty alleviation which is nothing but official money laundering. Instead of investing in public transportation such as railways, setting up assembly plants for mass busses that would create sustainable jobs, Nigeria inadvertently exported jobs through senseless importation of devices as Okada and kekenapep. Never again should President or Governors provide mass means of transport which they too would never use. There was once a Borno state under Governor Alhaji Modu Sheriff who proudly exhibited his sensational Jeep farm of some 76 Jeeps while he left his citizens with Okada that turned out instruments of mass destruction by insurgents nurtured through unemployment and mass poverty under his rule. It’s just not enough to ban okada but there must be in place mass transportation. And better still, there must be urgent Industrialization drive to reopen dead factories and create mass decent jobs.

Lagos government must make sure the blue rail line from Marina to Mile 2 starts next year. Addis Ababa Light Rail 17-kilometre (11 mi) line running from the city centre to industrial areas in the south of the city opened on 20 September 2015. Lagos rail line started before Addis Ababa. As a trade unionist, I bear witness that okada riding is not a decent sustainable job. In fact it is in a deskilling precarious work that lacks minimum standards like minimum wages and minimum health and safety rules. Okada riding is a modern willful slave trade. We must revive the industrial estates currently occupied by churches and emergency pastors and get Okada riders off roads of mass murders, under-employment to sustainable jobs in the factories.

I recall that in 2014, yours sincerely witnessed the historic flagged off of the much awaited intercity passenger train services and haulage of petroleum services from Lagos to Kano by the then Minister of Transport, Senator Idris Umar at the headquarters of the Nigerian Railway Corporation, Ebute Metta, Lagos. Indeed I was privileged to have a ride with thousands of passengers on Ilorin-Kano train that took off from Ebute Metta.

I happily de-boarded at Ikeja railway station in a record 15 minutes historic rail-ride that invoked nostalgia of my first trip by rail from Ilorin to Lagos in 1969 as a primary school pupil unaccompanied by my parents. The car with my driver that took me to Ebute Metta was still held up at Oyingbo notorious road traffic mess while I had disembarked at Ikeja from the modest but significant rail service. The fact that my car driver caught up with me one hour and half later underscores the economic fact that nothing moves goods and mass of peoples over a long distance, faster and cheaper than the railways! Nigeria can only compete with China, India and Russia if we can only transport mass of working people to work and back, not significant few on miserable devices called Okada.