By Victor Ezemobi
Okadaman (Speaking in Yoruba and English, honking the horn and tapping on my car): Ogbenilowajujare. Cut your hand go that side make I pass. This place no be your parlour oooo. If you no sabi drive, go park the car for the owner.
Me (Speaking in YorIgbo, with a smile on my face): Aburo, ilorowaju ahu loruoyangaa, m’alowaagiishi.
If you have ever driven on Lagos roads, am sure you have had a similar banter with a motor bike rider, looking for a way to weave through the busy Lagos traffic. Sometimes they weave and leave ‘hair line’ scratch on your freshly painted car. You get angry, come down from the car and you are greeted by ‘Oga nothing do am now’. What can you do? Life goes on.
However, life is not just going to go on as usual for the Lagos State government led by Governor BabajideOlusolaSanwo-Olu (BOSman). Effective February 1, 2020, commercial motorcycles (Okada) and tricylces (Keke) were banned from plying some major Local Government Areas and Area Council roads and bridges in Lagos. This is in line with the BOS’s dream of ‘Greater Lagos’ as captured in his ‘6 Pillars of Development Agenda’, T.H.E.M.E.S (Traffic Management and Transportation, Health and Environment, Education and Technology, Making Lagos a 21st Century Economy, Entertainment and Tourism, Security and Governance).
For Traffic Management and Transportation, BOS, during his inaugural speech on May 29, 2019, stated that “Here, we must act with urgency to execute a transport master plan that will fully integrate road, rail and water transportation into a multi-modal transport system that makes commuting easy for Lagosians. We must also ensure compliance with all traffic rules and regulations on our roads”.Acting with ‘urgency’and ‘ensuring compliance with all traffic rules and regulations’ necessitated the activation and enforcement of the Lagos State Transport Sector Reform Law 2018. Thus, the ban. The government argued that ‘Okada’ and ‘Keke’ are not part of the smart transport system envisioned for the state. As expected, there were some ‘we no go greeoo, we no go gree’ for a couple of days. Since then, silence.
A second reason for the ban is the rising number of ‘okada’ related cases reported at Igbobi. No administration will be comfortable with its citizens losing this natural means of transportation. After all, a quick traffic check on google maps will, among other options, show you how long it will take to ‘leg’ it to your destination.Trekking is not actually a bad thing. In other climes, you see folks clutching fresh hot burger in one hand and hot coffee in another, ‘legging’ it to wherever it is they need to be. It actually helps burn off some ‘nwkobi’ and ‘ishi-ewu’ fat. The other day, I had to walk from Ikeja under the bridgeto the local airport. I decided to trek because of the number of passengers I saw at the bus stop heading my way. Again, it has been a while I contended with the push and shove of getting into a public transport at rush hour. Add this to the fact that I have not been to the gym in over a year. Since wise man ‘can’t come and kill himself”, I did it one step at a time. But, to say the truth, the devil is in our weather. Freaking hot and humid. My solace? An ear piece to one ear and a matching beat to my footsteps.
Talking about beats and music, it is said that ‘music is the silence between the notes’. Anybody familiar with the sounds of Lagos will notice the ‘silence’ in-between the cacophonies of Lagos vehicle horns. You could hear that something was missing. At Ikeja, Broad Street, Tinubu square Obalende and so on, there was peace and quiet that you could hear because the crickets (by no means derogatory) were on hibernation. I call them crickets because in the midst of all other vehicular noise, okada and kekenoise are the tiniest, yet most irritating. A shopper on Broad Street was amazed by the peace. ‘I never knew Lagos can be this quiet’ she said.
Beyond the peace and quiet, car drivers are less exposed to the trauma of having to deal with a bike man suddenly appearing from the driver’s blind side at the very point of making a turn left or right. It is usually not easy to deal with. Maybe, this ban is a good thing.
Flipping the coin now, AminatDakeje-Ibrahim, while writing on the Lagos State Traffic Reform Law 2018 stated that “the keywords in the transport system have to be safe, fast, effective and efficient. The inhabitants must be presented with a transport system that moves with the speed of light, encouraging more deals to be closed, more commercial activities and ultimately more money to the government”.
Is the government ready for this? Bike riding may not be entirely safe but it is fast and effective, given how tight Lagos traffic jam can be. One twitter user once joked that ‘Lagosians’ are busier wading through traffic than being productive. It is only in Lagos that you will be staring at your estate gate but have to endure a one-hour traffic just to make a U-turn less than a kilometre away. How many of you reading this have had any of your meals in traffic just because you can’t get to your destination on time, eat a decent meal and get busy or to bed. If you have not tried the good old reliable coke and gala, you have not been through Eko traffic. What options do we have? There are talks about enhancing waterways transport and insertion of more Bus Rapid Transport units. Maybe these should have been done before the ban.
How about the roads? The state of a road has a direct effect on how fast or slow a journey can be. Before the cessation of 2019 rains, BOSman almost became a weather man. The rains took all the blame for the bad state of the city roads. It is worthy to note however that a lot of roads are wearing a new look but more can still be done.
There is need to strike a balance between a smart city and a happy city. Survival in Lagos is tough as it is. Ask the three wise men standing by Otedola bridge. This is Lagos, they tell you. A fast, effective, efficient and safe mode of transport is desirable but the road towards achieving it should not leave sores on the soles of our feet. We all should be happy moving forward.
Concluding, a comedian, while dancing to the beats of a popular Nigerian sound asked: ‘if BOSman no ban these okada them, maybe one day we all no go get complete legs again. How we for dey dance ‘legwork’? My answer: by the time we develop blisters as a result of excessive trekking instead of waiting endlessly for a bus, how do we dance ‘legwork’? Our style in Naija, isn’t it? Answering a question with another.
In all, we need a greater Lagos, we need a stress free transition and we need our legs. We really do love our dancing you know.