Opeifa |
The Lagos State Government is working on a number
of options to engage genuine commercial motorcycle operators, recently thrown
out of jobs as a result of the implementation of the new traffic law, in
meaningful ventures.
The Commissioner for Transportation, Mr. Kayode
Opeifa, dropped the hint in Lagos on Wednesday, stressing that the move was
meant to give only the registered operators a new lease of life.
Many of the okada riders, as the
commercial motorcycle operators are called, have had to abandon the business,
as the new law prohibits them from plying major roads and bridges in the state.
According to the new traffic law, only those with 200cc engine capacity can
operate in the permitted areas.
Some aggrieved operators have been protesting
against the new policy and a few people sympathetic to their cause have urged
the state government to rescind its decision in view of the multitude that will
be affected.
But Opeifa, who spoke at the 11th Business Forum
of the Lagos State University’s MBA Heritage held on Lagos Island on Wednesday,
said that there was no going back on the decision.
He said, “We are resolute about the Road Traffic
Law; there is no going back on it. But we are going to re-certify the okada
operators resident in Lagos.
“We are going to start a registration process,
and in the process, if we discover those who have skills, we will send them to
the skill acquisition centres established by the state government to hone these
skills.”
Opeifa, who spoke on the theme, ‘Effect of
Transportation on Nigeria’s Economy,’ stressed that okada could not be
regarded as a means of transportation, as nobody wished to bequeath it as an
inheritance to their children.
The commissioner, therefore, said the state
government would re-register the operators with a view to providing the genuine
ones adversely affected by the policy other job opportunities.
“Some of them could be absorbed into the LAGBUS
as conductors and drivers. We also have agriculture, where some of them can
also be useful. Apart from our farms in Lagos, we have bought landed property
in Ogun State and Abuja, and we are going to buy more in Benue for agriculture.
So, the options are there for them,” he said.
According to him, the state government plans to
assist some of the okada riders with the acquisition of skills to make
them employable or to become self-employed.
Opeifa also said some of them would be assisted
to own bakeries after undertaking the needed training.
But the Managing Director, Megavons West Africa
Limited, Dr. Rotimi Oladele, expressed the view that the okada
business could be reorganised, and urged the state government to re-brand it as
a community transport system.
Although Oladele, who was a keynote speaker at
the forum, commended the state government for its efforts in transforming
Lagos, he said there was still a need for a truly masses-oriented means of
transport, which the okada business represented.
“Let us re-brand them as community transport
system, license them and restrict them to their domiciliary local government
areas,” he said.
Opeifa said there was a need for the development
of multi-modal transportation system for the economy to grow.
“The groundnut pyramids were moved from the North
down to Lagos by the railway; likewise, cocoa and some other farm produce. The
system worked then, and all that seems to have died now,” he said.
Opeifa advised that the review of the
Constitution currently going on should whittle down some powers of the
government at the centre, so that states and local governments could develop
the modes of transportation that suited them.
No comments:
Post a Comment