Be Warned – Sacked Okada Riders Are Mobilising For Mayhem

What many of us believe is that sanity has returned to some Lagos routes following the ban of commercial motor bikes and tricycle on them.

But The Eagle investigations point to a danger – something sinister beneath the seeming sanity.

Many of the displaced okada and keke riders are unhappy losing their lucrative routes or their jobs outrightly are not smiling about it.

One of them, who showed obvious hostility to his passenger yesterday, that he was forced to the Ogba-Ishaga routes from the Oshodi axis where he said he used to make better money, bemoaning that things had never been the same.

According to him, it is in the bid to make up that they have refused to return to the previous N100 charge per trip especially in the mornings and the evenings.

“What rubbish, anybody we no want enter keke, make e commot my front”, he swore to middle aged man almost hitting him off the way by Kayode street.

And for the rest of the journey, he kept cursing those behind the ban, reiterating:

“Make them ready, robbery dey come. Fight dey come. If person no fit drive keke, him no go chop?”, he querried , adding that either by hook or crook, they would earn their living.

He was later to identify himself as Kazeem.

By Elliot bus stop within the same area, our correspondent was attracted by a commotion in an adjoining street.

A young man was sitting on the bare floor his head covered by a bloodied white shirt.

Street violence expected to rise in Lagos

An unconfirmed information was that the fellow had just been dislodged by the ban on Okada and was forced to relocate to the spot.

That morning, he had a confrontation with others who felt uncomfortable with is presence, leading to the blood.

Yet, he was threatening in a local dialect that he would sit still and await the return of his opponents.

An ugly scene played out by the Ogba bus stop in the early hours of Wednesday, when all of a sudden, a Keke Marwa driver who had been stalked by two policemen jumped off the biked and began to dismantle his wind shield in anger.

He created a scene pulling off the rubber linings before eventually dismantling the shield.

He was prancing about, swearing and cursing and asking that the entire vehicle should instead be seized.

Some bystanders said he had just obtained the vehicle and was tryong to pay back the capital.

In a twinkle of an eye, other keke drivers had massed about the place, protesting what they described as hounding of innocent people trying to eke a living.

One of them declared: “This government wants wahala, make them ready. Police, task force, wetin”.

It was first a winner-takes-all scene for two touts at the berger bus stop mid afternoon today, over who to collect tolls from mini buses approaching the bus stop.

A freezed soft drinks seller told our correspondent that the number of touts had increased at the spot leading to contests over sphere of influence.

Also close to the BRT terminal was a crowd of stranded passengers. They would rush towards just any vehicle that attempted a slow down only to be hushed off.

Most complained bitterly of the ban, saying its ripple effect was resulting in very few commuter vehicles on major routes.

“If there is no Okada and no Marwa”, said an elderly man, “it is suffering for people like us. In the last one week, it has been like this”.

He said that it has resulted to him arriving work at his Oyingbo office late almost daily, despite having to struggle and fight.

He linked this to the ban, adding that even the young men on his street who used to operate the keke had been rendered idle.

ANN ANI CHINAZA also reports that the restriction had led to frayed tempers and the resultant death of a schoolgirl.

In a video shared online shortly following the restriction order, a school girl clad in her school uniform was seen lying motionless on the road.

Report was that she was hit by a stray bullet.

Her uniform was soaked in blood as concerned citizens tried to help by tying clothes around her to stem the blood flow. There was commotion around as people screamed in distress as they tried unsuccessfully to offer help to the dying girl.