The Lagos State Task Force has revealed its intelligence and surveillance gathering around the metropolis in recent times has shown that Okada riders who had been banned from operating on the state’s highways and restricted routes last year are returning to those routes gradually just after the recently concluded Salah (Ileya) festival to continue their illegality. 

This information was made public by the chairman of the agency, CSP Shola Jejeloye, at the headquarters, Bolade, Oshodi, where he described the actions of the incorrigible okada operators as an effort in futility. He stated that the agency is not unaware of the influx of illegal aliens from neighbouring countries who trooped into the city right after the Ileya celebrations to resume operations on restricted routes despite the ban on their activities still being in full force. 

“Some of the okada operators who had their bikes confiscated in the past have returned to Lagos to resume their illegal operations. We have undercover operatives who monitor various locations across the state, and we have it on good authority that these illegal commercial motorcycle operators are back to kick off their okada business, but we are battle ready for them.”

The chairman disclosed that Lagos is a metropolis that welcomes various individuals of different tribes, ethnicity and nationality, but some unscrupulous elements are trying to take advantage of that opportunity to perpetrate their illegal activities at the detriment of well-meaning Lagosians. Foreigners who engage in legitimate business in the city are always welcomed, but the agency frowns at illegal aliens or criminals who perform illegalities, one of which is riding okada on restricted routes across the state.

Jejeloye reiterated that the ban on the activities of okada in six LGAs and nine LCDAs was in line with the State’s Transport Sector Reform Law of 2018, which aims to maintain the state’s mega city status as enshrined in the THEMES agenda of the present administration; therefore, no recalcitrant okada operator would be allowed to truncate the efforts of the State Government.

“We have recorded numerous success stories since the ban across the board, ranging from a drop in crime rate, a reduction in traffic bottlenecks occasioned by their recklessness to a reduction in accident cases reported in the orthopaedic hospitals in Lagos. It’s our duty and responsibility to ensure that these agents of anarchy are not allowed to return to the Highways, and we will make sure any operator caught would be made to face the music”.

Available security reports suggest that we should be expecting more influx of them after the farming/rainy season, but our strategic and security antenna put in place will fish them out, and their bikes will be impounded.

It is high time they toed the line of best practices and imbibed the belief that crime is not a career before it is too late.

Meanwhile, Today, 12th July 2023, the agency carried out a massive clampdown on okada riders operating at 2nd Rainbow along the Oshodi-Apapa Expressway, several okadas were impounded in the process, and the operation was hitch-free.

CSP Jejeloye urged Lagosians to continue utilising alternative and safer means of transportation as the clamp down on okada operations will be full-blown. He reminded commuters that passengers who patronise okada operators are also as culpable as the rider, and passengers would both be made to face the full wrath of the law.