The Secretary to Surulere Local Government Area, Kehinde Agoro, says the council will set up a task force to ensure smooth implementation of the ban of commercial motorcycles in the area.

Mr Agoro told journalists on Monday in Lagos that the council chairman would inaugurate the task force as soon as the ban takes effect on June 1.

“The chairman is going to be setting a task force to ensure that the law is implemented.

“We need to have that task force, and we are ready for them to start operating,” Mr Agoro said.

He noted that the council boss had met with the motorcycle association in the area on the development and how to map out other routes to ease movement.

He commended the Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, for a bold step in banning commercial motorcycles in the state.

Mr Agoro said that majority of the riders have started relocating to other nearby local governments that were not affected by the ban.

He added that the ban would affect the Internal Generated Revenue (IGR) of the council, adding that they would look inwards to other areas to augment it.

“We need to bridge the challenges we will face in our IGR because our revenue is going to reduce because of the ban.

“We are ready to get that looked into as well,” he said.

Mr Agoro noted that the task force would also monitor movement from adjoining local governments such as Mushin to ensure no trespassing.

He urged residents to endure the development as the council would organise tricycles and minibuses to move people closer to their destinations.

“The use of task force in the local government is to ensure the safety of the masses and be able to identify anyone that doesn’t belong to the rightful association of the transporters.

“It is also to help avoid cases such as kidnap and robbery from underground evil transport workers.

“We will be involving the use of identity cards amongst our transport workers in the local government in future. It is a step, but we will get that done,” he said.

(NAN)