O’odua Nationalist Coalition has lent its support to the ban placed on commercial motorcycles by the Lagos State Government.
The group, which claimed to represent 26 different social and cultural formations drawn from artisans, fishermen and women, traders and ordinary people, said several years of military rule in the country had led to the “distortion of values” thereby affecting ability to know what was right or wrong.
The President, ONC, Mr. Sunday Agbana, told journalists at a news conference in Lagos on Tuesday that okada riding in the city was transportation to death.
He said, “Whereas, in the era of draconian rule, successive civilian administrations have inherited this malaise of transportation by death without addressing the far reaching consequences on the peace and wellbeing of the entire commonwealth.
“We affirm that the years of maladministration under the military hegemony has brought catastrophic social means of survival, and many intriguing cultures that have led to and continue to lead to extreme poverty, pain and anguish of the majority of our people.”
He added, “Over the years, transportation through okada has assumed a life of its own, becoming a booming business culture propelled not by the dwindling transportation fortunes but rather by profit of individual racketeers, business men and women, workers and traders who now see okada as the critical source of economic advancement.”
Agbana condemned the hue and cry that greeted the partial ban, adding that similar ban had been undertaken in Port Harcourt, Abuja and Enugu by its respective state governments.
The ONC leader said if government was willing to wage a successful war against crime and arrest security threat to life and property, it must not overlook the dangers posed by the operation of okada riders.
He said, “Organised crime has become a great challenge for the people and the authorities. Given the proliferation of arms and the increasing number of illegal weapons in the custody of non-state actors, the Niger-/Delta crisis and the insurgence of faith-induced violent crimes in the North and Southern parts of the country, what we see now is unending and uncontrolled migration from many troubled regions into the Southwest area, which appears to be more peaceful compared with the rest of the country.”