(http://www.leadership.ng/nga/sites/default/files/articleimages/babatunde-fashola.jpg)
Worried by the menace posed by commercial motorcycles, a.k.a. Okada riders in Lagos State, Governor Babatunde Fashola is set to wield the big stick against recalcitrant riders who have defied all forms of measures taken by the government to make them comply with the law.
To this end, the governor has reconstituted the 32-member Lagos State Security Committee to urgently look into the menace posed by Okada riders in Lagos and submit its report in three weeks.
The governor lamented that between January this year and now, 346 robbery suspects were arrested on Okada, while 1,259 accidents involving Okada riders were reported in government public facilities. After reeling out the figures, Governor Fashola said he could no longer tolerate this, adding that the issue called for utmost concern.
"The last two months alone, from LASUTH to Ikeja, we had 179 cases of Okada accidents, within October and November alone. Out of that 179, 170 of the victims were passengers.
"At the Toll Gate emergency centre, we had 41 accidents reported there on Okada".
"All these reports are just for two months. In the combined reports from 20 government hospitals that we monitored over the last two months in October and November, we had 1,039 accident cases on Okada," he revealed.
He explained further: "Now, with regards to crime, between January and now, 346 robbers were arrested on Okada. If you isolate that two months alone, October and November, it was 79 robbers on Okada. Those who got away in robbery cases on Okada were seven, three in October and four in November.
"If you look at traffic violations in October and November, we had 1,908 involving Okada in October and 1,003 in November, making a total of 2,911 for two months of traffic violations. Clearly, this is no longer acceptable and this is why I have called you back," he told members of the committee.
Fashola explained that the first report the committee presented to him on the menace of Okada riders is now four years old and needed to be reviewed urgently
"So, we are asking you to kindly let us have the benefit of your expertise and advice and knowledge on the way we can review some of the recommendations you made in 2007. It is clear to us now that Okada is used clearly for organised crime and we take the view that crime is a business, but it's an illegal business and it threatens legal and lawful business, and our responsibility is to protect the legal and lawful business," the governor declared.
P.M News