Shola Jejeloye, the president, Lagos State Environmental and Special Crimes Unit (Working Group)says there is 85 percent compliance with the commercial motorcycle ban in the past three days.
Jejeloye said this on Friday in Ikeja, while speaking to reporters, during the smashing of commercial motorcycles, popularly known as Okada, which were confiscated during the execution.
He said enforcement of the ban would continue, to ensure the sanity of the environment.
According to him, the application of the ban did not start only on Wednesday, June 1, but has been in force since February 1, 2020.
“Since then, we’ve been at it. It’s just that people believe in breaking the law, which I don’t think is good enough in a cosmopolitan city like this. But since June 1, there has been more than 85 percent compliance.
“85 percent compliance in the sense that we no longer see Okada on the roads, on the highways. The number has been drastically reduced.
”You may believe that the first week of execution will be exhaustive; after a week we are going to relax, anyway, we are going to look and see.
“I am passing this message to you that starting next week, we will do a more intense application. Even those areas that we can’t get to this week, we’re going to expand. So another phase will start on Monday.
Lagos State Task Force Team Crushes Commercial Motorcycles Seized in Lagos on Friday (03/06/22)
“These first three days of application are just to test it, to verify the compliance number, then the sustainability plan is the next phase, which we are going to enter on Monday,” he said.
Jejeloye said there was no turning back from Okada’s enforcement of the ban as the government does not flout his policies and decisions.
Transport Commissioner Frederick Oladeinde said the government was reforming the transport sector and integrating all the various transport modes so that people could move from one mode to another seamlessly and pay with a single ticket.
Oladeinde said the first and last mile buses put in place by the government would help transport residents from where Okada was not allowed to operate.
He said there were some good bikers from Okada and the government had talked to the union and asked them to form a cooperative.
According to him, the government will give them the first and last mile buses, and will employ some of them.
“So others who don’t have skills, we don’t want them in Lagos, and that’s why you have the enforcement agency to walk around all day just to make sure that people who don’t need to be in Lagos aren’t in Lagos. .
”We want people to come to Lagos who have something to contribute, people who have skills so that we can begin to develop the economic potential of Lagos state.
“So we don’t want anyone to come to Lagos just because they can pick up Okada or they can sleep under the bridge. So this is going to be a resistance for them,” she said.
Mr. Oladeinde urged Lagos State residents to be calm, respect traffic laws and move about in their daily activities as the government provided an alternative to Okada.
Information and Strategy Commissioner Gbenga Omotoso said that in the first quarter of 2022 some 5,000 Okada had been crushed and today there were about 2,000 left to crush.
Mr. Omotoso urged Okada passengers to adopt the many alternative modes of transport provided by the government, as there are plans to inject more first and last mile buses into the metropolis.
He said that in the first four months of 2022, the state recorded 1,712 accidents, 767 were caused by Okada resulting in death, and 45 percent of these cyclists were young people between the ages of 30 and 39.
“So getting Okada off the roads helps our young people stay alive, it doesn’t harm our people.
“We are not leaving them to their fate and that is why we have said that anyone who is interested in doing a decent business can form a cooperative and join the First and Last Mile bus scheme.
“They can submit their proposals to the state employment trust fund and get money to finance their businesses.
“We have vocational centers where they can learn a trade and start a new life. So anyone who says that Okada is the only way to make a living in Lagos is doing no good,” the commissioner said.
(YAYA)
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