Demystifying Lagos – Okada University October 10, 2007

A lot of Okada riders are youngsters who are either out of school, out of the home, have a problem or the other that requires finances, and in one way or the other tried to make a living by becoming an Okada, however the situation has quite become permanent. The Okada business is immediately attractive to such in that “its just a matter of carrying passengers from here to there(short journeys) and charging NGN20/30(Twenty or Thirty Naira), depending on distance, and there will always be passengers to carry to and fro.” Such was the conclusion of an Okada youngster I once had a chat with. Other Okada riders are more elderly men(mostly married), who are in the business because they have no other way of making a living for the upkeep of their family. Often involved in arguments with each other over various things such as: who was in front of who in a line, who called the passenger/which rider was called by the passenger, the major bone in their throat are the multitudes of agberos at each junction they pass through, and the policemen who still extort out of their meagre wages.

Yes, no doubt, a lot of okada riders, regardless of age are not supposed to be on the street in the first place. This is because they have neither the proper training or the personal know-how of the Okada business/Motorcycle maintenance Okada riding, rider to passenger relations and personal/passenger safety precautionary measures etc.,(don’t mind me, im talking as if I was a CNN reporter doing a classic story on okada, as if these grammatical “virtues” exist, especially in Lagos state). Besides, the majority do not have Motorcycle driving/riding licenses, even if they have, its expired.

Now, I remember an insult I received one day from an Okada man, who I had waved down, hoping that he’ll take me to my destination – t’was quite nearby. Asking him how much the fare would be, he said it would be NGN50.00(Fifty Naira). I wanted to beat it down, so I told him I could go for only NGN30.00(Thirty naira). The next moment was really shocking, as he shouted at me: “O boy, get lost, you poor man, if you no get money, go sit down for ya house.” With that he zoomed off. It took me about 2-minutes to actually believe I had just been insulted – by Okada. But what could I do, if you go near a bee, expect to be bitten.

Out to make fast money, Okada riders are on the streets as early as 4am or 5am, since fares would be higher at such early hours. With a bid to quickly discharge a passenger and look for another one, many would throw their own personal safety and that of their passenger aside, as they compete with cars, buses and trucks for road-rights, cutting corners at break-neck speeds etc,. Okada riders are always on the injury and death receiving end when fatal accidents happen. It doesn’t take 5-minutes for other Okada riders to assemble together(like rice and beans) at any accident scene involving one of their own. They would rather defend their compatriots’ action/s, and pass judgment on what they didn’t see happen, and should the motorist in question want to prove a strong-head, they have their way of threatning him/her or even immediately inflicting damage to him/her and the car, at least to prove they were a serious bunch, if the police or the general public didn’t immediately interfere. Even after the police interfere, you can be sure that you as the driver of the car has no case when all of you get to the police station…..considering the police themselves are bonafide students of the okada academy, both in person and ‘financially speaking’.

Its a known fact that armed robbers across the nation(i’m reporting from Lagos) have been making use of okada riders to perpetrate their acticities. Okada riders often serve as a quick get-away option, especially in a bumper-to-bumper environment like Lagos state. Assisting as get-aways in handbag/cell-phone snatching operations and other small-scale or low-keys robberies, they are often employed as station-lookouts etc. The truth is that even the armed robbers themselves dress up like ‘harmless okada drivers’(let me assume that all okada men are harmless for one-minute), at least to create a little diversion. They even dump their cars and do their stuff on motocycles, so, no wonder we call them all Okadas. Besides, one cannot rule out that indeed, a lot of rotten eggs exist among these full-time Okada riders.

In an attempt to curb the activities of hoodlums across the state, the Lagos State Government had officially announced last August 10th, 2006 its decision to ban okada riders from plying their trade between the hours: 7pm-6am. Then I commended the show of interest by the State Government in the welfare of its people, but one year later, the story has changed. To say it right, the Okada have banned the police from showing their faces on the streets by 7pm-6pm – I mean, ‘financially speaking’.

Very briefly, who is an okada man.:
1) The okada man is a regular Nigerian male, jobless, who seeks to make a living by riding a motorcycle and offering short-distance transportation services to people.
2) The “okada man” is a large circle comprising of the following kind of people: regular jobless males seeking to make a living, extra-cash minded people, police officers not on duty, army officers not on duty, any-body(do you need money? can you ride a motorcycle? even if you can’t).

From a personal point of view, all the talk about banning okada riders has not solved the Okada/robbery problem especially in Lagos state. I believe the thousands of touts, agberos, the seniors and junior ‘boys’, the omo’s, the egbon’s, the baba’s, the shandy boys, the olu-ile’s(land-owners) and the alaye’s who “own bus-stops, streets, corners and junctions” pose more of a threat to State Security than ‘harmless okada riders‘(im again getting positive). More so, the rank and file of police officers who daily collect tithes and offerings, feeding fat and fine out of Lagos agbero NGN20.00(twenty-naira) booty on a daily basis, compounds the problem more and more. On a higher level, the hench-men carrying out politically motivated killings, and the rich men and women living in and outside Lagos State, but who are sponsoring, paying and “taking care of” these hench-men, demand the immediate attention of the State Government, if State Security is really a concern. Both the hench-men and their sponsors should be seriously dealt with.

An example of this was a chat which I happened to have with a one ‘mallam-polish’ (a mallam who polishes shoes). Sometime ago, I had taken my computer, so I took it to a guy’s shop. While awaiting the receptionist’s arrival, I called on the services of a shoe-polish mallam, to come shine my shoes. As he asked me to bring my shoes, i asked him to give me his extra-pair of slippers meant for customers use while he polished my shoes. He laughingly informed me that the agbero at the junction he passed earlier in the morning collected it from him. So we fell into a conversation………...he informed me that his extra-pair of slippers was collected by the agbero who “owned the junction” he had passed earlier in the morning, as a ransom for his lack of being able to pay NGN30-thirty naira(since he hadn’t had any customers for the day, I was the first), which was the fee for plying his trade on “the agbero’s street”, for which the junction served as an entrance. Note: this is a complete business area with offices, banks, showrooms, restaurants etc., a really busy environment right and left. So I proceeded to ask him what will happen should he walk to the far end of the road(which was quite a distance) and make an exit on his way home….he smilingly showed me a red-pen signature at the back of his right hand….which was to serve as proof that he had paid “today’s” dues. hhhmmm. I proceeded to ask him about boys and girls hawking peanuts, plantain-chips, pure-water, news-papers etc…….. According to my new found friend, they all pay NGN20/30 naira daily depending on what they sell…….”even kole-kole dey pay”, (kole-kole are push-cart boys who pack your refuse for a fee)…..so he said, and if they don’t pay, they won’t be allowed to ply their trade, or the agbero could pick and choose what he wanted to ‘confiscte’ from whatever these hawkers were selling, until his(agbero’s) money is produced. He said his name is Hameed. I asked Hameed if he knew anything that the police had done about such an unfortunate situation. He said “ha oga, all of dem dey work together, now, wetin, na chop make I chop dem dey do.“

I hope and pray the -Lagos Government will not wait until the present situation advances to a more technical stage where stamps will be placed on hawker’s forehead on a daily basis, just for the twenty naira cause.

Back to Okada.
The Okada riding business was not and is not a government initiated means of gainful employment. It is people who found out: this is how I can make money, and they got themselves into something ‘profitable’. Since, Okada riders never had a central mouth-piece, I believe its time for them to come together in peace and harmony(if really they can) and fish out the rotten fishes among them, who will continue making their life a living hell. Should they come together, it will be better to organize themselves into routes/area, so each person knows where he is supposed to patrionize. As such, rules can be set and strangers can be easily picked out and self made agbero’s would find something else to do rather than a forceful extortion. Another suggestion I have is if they could wear uniforms(especially the one with reflectors), especially at night, have a central body, register and have Identity cards, for easy identification and presentation when questioned by the police.

There are a whole lot of things they could do, to make their business more profitable, but the problem is getting them all to sit at the same table and agree. This of course is the greatest problem.