From Dei-Dei market to Galadimawa community and many parts of the FCT, there is so much anxiety about the proclivity of commercial motorcycle operators for lawlessness, recklessness and violence, Olawale Ajimotokan, Kingsley Nweze and King Akan report

Commercial motorcyclists, otherwise known in the local parlance as Okada have somehow become an anathema in the consciousness of the public. This is due to their excesses and penchant to unleash mayhem on innocent people at the slightest provocation, in stack defiance of extant law.

It appears the authorities are helpless in taming this menace even though since 2006, the Federal Capital Territory Administration has outlawed the operation of Okada from the Abuja metropolis by restricting them to inside estates and the satellite towns.

Section 42(1) of the Road Traffic Act of the FCT is very clear about the operation of commercial motorcycles. It says permit should not be granted for them to operate.

But the contrary is the case as an army of jobless youths and people displaced by insecurity across many parts of the north as well as immigrants from neigbouring countries now see commercial motorcycles as a leeway to escape from economic hardship.

Their characteristic reckless struggle for space on the major highways of Abuja with vehicles has either caused accidents leading to the death of many commuters or sustenance of lifetime injuries by others.

However, what has become a worrisome trend to authorities of recent is the predisposition of the Okada operators to escalate violence, affray and riot that disrupt public peace and order.

Lives and highly valued assets have also been lost in some of the violence sparked by Okada fracas.

The clashes at Dei-Dei International Market on May 18 where five persons died and goods valued at billions of naira were burned and the disturbance at Same Global Estate in Dakwo, Galadimawa on May 29 where the commercial motorcyclists set ablaze the estate’s security gate, are fresh reminders.

Some accounts said the Dei-Dei market incident occurred when a woman fell off a bike and was crushed to death by a trailer on the main road close to the market, all due to the alleged recklessness of an Okada driver. 

After the demise, the Okada boys insisted on recovery of their bike while the angry crowd refused.

In a fit of anger, the mob consisting purely of concerned citizens burnt the motorbike to the chagrin of the commercial bike riders who later mobilised by attacking and burning shops in the market. 

From accounts gathered, the market traders, who suffered from the attacks, were not even aware of this incident as they were in the shops carrying out their businesses. The Okada riders in turn, who happen to live in settlements behind and around the market, deemed it justifiable to set the market ablaze, loot shops and attack the traders, who were merely victims of circumstance roped into the crisis because it happened in front of their market.

Monday Gabriel, a carpenter, whose shop was razed in the arson, had kept some materials he salvaged from the fire behind a shop opposite his shop (now in ashes), and to his surprise when he came to get the materials, they were gone. His worry was the customer was waiting for him in another shop to collect the job.

“When the crisis broke out we thought it was a joke because the main incident happened along the main road. We did not expect that the hoodlums would enter the market because it was not the residents of the market that burnt the Okada, he said”.

“But before we knew what was happening, the Okada people went to gather themselves and started burning some shops. They said they won’t accept it as far as their Okadas were burnt, they must revenge. They were throwing stones and before we knew it they started setting shops ablaze. 

“Unfortunately, my shop was one of them and some of my goods and the jobs I had done were burnt. I lost about N2 million worth of goods in this singular act. I wrote to the union and they agreed to forward our issues to the federal government”.

He appealed to the government to come to the rescue of the traders by providing adequate security and compensation for their loss.

“We still need government assistance indirectly because the security agents in form of vigilante we have here are employed by the timber market itself. Government needs to support us to recover what we have lost. We are presently like people that lost their homes because it is what we make from the market we use to feed our family. So we are appealing to the Federal Government to assist us so we can start all over,” Gabriel lamented.

Another trader who lost his goods to the crisis was Kenneth Oluchukwu of the cutting machine factory line.

“My loss is more than N2 million. I lost my pallet for blocks which is used to carry blocks and slice and I have more than two thousand of them. Each cost N30,000 which is about six hundred thousand that got burnt down here.

“I am a family man with four children. I pay N50,000 per term as school fees for my children at school. Now how do I pay for their fees now?” Oluchukwu bemoaned.

The Executive Chairman, Dei-Dei International Timber Traders Association Abuja (DITTA), Mr. Chibuzor Ekesiy, said the estimated cost of the losses recorded in terms of properties and goods was over N1.5 billion.

When quizzed on the incident and measures taken to control any the chaos within the market on the day, he stated that: “When the hoodlums began to set the market ablaze, we immediately called on fire service and the police and they came but not adequately. Two police men were on ground and they couldn’t do anything. 

“We also called the army and their boss said they were having a meeting that they would send two trucks of soldiers which we later saw one. The civil defence was not there, the fire service when we called them they were not there. At a point when I called them again after pressurising them continuously they said that they could not penetrate the road, that the mob had blocked the road from Dei-Dei junction, that we should call on Saburi people which I called before I called Kubwa. 

“Later when I called them again they said they don’t have security that I should provide them security and I don’t know how I can provide security to fire service. We tried to see if we could use the soldiers that were here to see if we can go and escort them in but the soldiers were busy trying to repel the attack which was too much,” Ekesiy said.

Speaking on the measures the association was taking to ensure safety of life and properties, he said:

“Like I told them when I met the market security the other day and the FCT Minister, we need external assistance in the area of security. The government should help us. We have our security operatives in the system who are there on a daily basis; day and night but when that type of invasion comes, they have very little to do because the mob came with weapons”.

He commended the FCT Minister, whom he said promised to beef up security in the market.

“Honestly we appreciate his efforts. His swift attention to the matter came that Wednesday night. He was there and that was when he closed the market. His intervention helped us enjoy relative peace within the period the market was closed. 

“We appreciate his efforts and we thank him and thank God that he has reopened the market again. You can see activities in the market are bubbling, so we are happy he did that but every other measure, we have pleaded with them to see if they can assist us to provide security”.

Ekesiy also stressed the need by the FCT to compensate the victims who were injured, whose shops were burnt and those unable to do business due to the closure of the market.

He also offered some words of encouragement and advice to the traders, people of FCT and Nigerians in general saying they should remain calm and peaceful stressing they cannot conduct business successfully without a peaceful atmosphere and environment.

Speaking with the Chairman Okada Riders, Dei-Dei junction, Ibrahim Abdullahi, he revealed that their members have been cautioned and advised to desist from violence or confrontations with members of the public.

“We are controlling our people and we have told them henceforth anything that happens they should not take matters into their hands but seek the attention of the police. Also we are attending to complaints and resolving issues of the public,” Abdulahi said.

Few days after the mayhem at Dei-Dei there was also a reported fracas at Galadimawa after Okada riders attacked the estate in reprisal for the killing of two of their members by a motorist, who reportedly ran into the estate to escape a lynching.

Afterwards, a retinue of Okada riders, bearing cudgels and other dangerous items, arrived at the scene to attack the estate.

The Estate Manager, Same Global Estate, Mr Adebisi Adelowo, confirmed the onslaught on the estate by the Okada riders. He said they vandalised the estate’s gate and pelted residents with stones. He said the gate-house manning the estate security was torched during the violence.

However, he denied as “misleading” a report that two houses were burned by the Okada operators in the estate that was commissioned in 2003 and that has about 680 families.

 “What they burned was only the gate at the security post. They wanted to burn the house by setting fire on the security gate but we put it off. They tried to burn the house but we quenched the fire.

“The hit and run incident happened outside our estate. It was just that we have a police station here and that partly caused the problem. When the crisis was escalated by the Okada operators, the motorist involved in the crisis, simply because they saw the Police sign board, started running into the estate because they felt the Police could offer them protection.  In fact, that has been happening to us since we opened the police post,” Adelowo said.

He insisted the driver that crushed the two Okada riders was not their resident, adding the Police had already removed the car from the estate.

“The Police have already taken the car. They are the one tracking the person, we are not the one. And they have not told us if they have caught the person because the person is not our resident. We don’t have any issue with Okada people because Okada ensured that they took the car out of our estate, that day. But our grouse is how they just came and damaged our property,” he said.

He added that the Police had also evaluated the cost of damages at the estate during the fracas and the houses affected. He said the Okada pelted stones at houses, breaking glasses and damaging air conditioners.

“They used stones to smash some people’s glasses, their air conditioners. But we are working on our own to take accurate inventory of what was damaged”.

He also said several residents were injured during the fracas, while showing the bruises inflicted on him and some other residents present during the interview.

“They were hauling stones from outside. Fire fighters came and put off the fire. The Police and the Army really tried for us. The Commissioner of Police and DPO Galadimawa, DPO of Lugbe, DPO TradeMore, DPO of Apo, almost five DPOs came here because of the problem, even the DSS. We thank God everything is okay,” Adelowo said.

However, the Director, Director Directorate of Road Traffic Services (DRTS) popularly called VIO, Abdulateef Bello has in the light of the Dei-Dei and Galadimawa fracas said that the Okada problem in the FCT requires a multi-sectorial solution given the operators were becoming a public nuisance.

“It is important to know is that the FCTA has ordered the ban on the Use of Okada in the FCT since 2006 and equally regulated their use within certain areas by restricting them to only the estates and suburbs because they have constituted themselves into nuisance and their conduct is becoming lawless. And then it is not just the responsibility of the DRTS, I think it is beyond DRTS- I think the approach should now be multi-sectorial in regulating their activities because of all manner of criminalities they commit in the FCT. It should be the responsibility of all the security agencies to now come together to monitor, regulate and control the activities of the motorcyclists,” Bello said.

He said the Directorate had arrested well over 1,600 motorcycles that were impounded for riding on the highways.

He added that although Okada is banned with the Federal Capital City, there will continue to be problem with their operation as well as those of social miscreants as long as there are shanties within and around the FCC.

Meanwhile the FCT Police Command has convened a meeting of the command with chairmen of  the association of commercial motorcycle associations in Abuja.The meeting followed the invasion of Global  Estates by motorcyclists in the FCT.

The FCT Commissioner of Police, Mr Sunday Babaji, said the move was designed to contain incessant attacks by the groups on residents and destruction of property.

Speaking in an interview with THISDAY, the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) and Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), Mrs Josephine Adeh, said the move was designed to contain the situation.

“Since the incident, the Police Commissioner, Mr Sunday Babaji, has convened a meeting with the motorcyclists. The meeting is yet to hold but he will meet with all the chairmen of the Okada associations in Abuja to see how to tackle the issue”, she said.

The command also assured residents that normalcy was restored to the affected area.

“The FCT Commissioner of Police, CP Babaji Sunday, was on the ground with a heavy deployment of operatives for an on-the-spot assessment. It is imperative to equally state that contrary to information filtering about, no house was burnt”, it said. The CP assured residents of the command’s commitment to the safety of lives and property within the FCT under his watch while urging well-meaning members of the public to remain calm and go about their lawful businesses without the fear of harassment and molestation while urging them to remain vigilant and report any suspicious or abnormal occurrence to the police.

Their characteristic reckless struggle for space on the major highways of Abuja with vehicles has either caused accidents leading to the death of many commuters or sustenance of lifetime injuries by others