By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D. Inflicting transportational misery on the poor appears to be the latest trend in governance in Nigeria. ...
By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.
Inflicting transportational misery on the poor
appears to be the latest trend in governance in Nigeria. It started with Lagos State governor Babatunde
Fashola’s ban
on commercial motor cycles in the city of Lagos. Then the
Federal Capital Territory Administration followed with its own ban
on the use of mini-buses in Abuja and environs. (Motor
cycles have been banned in Abuja for years). Kano State’s ban on commercial
motor cycles is the latest in the governmental craze to make intra-city
mobility a nightmare for the poor.
Lagos, Kano, and Abuja are undoubtedly Nigeria’s
most important cities. While Lagos is our commercial hub, Abuja is the center
of governance, and Kano is the biggest city and commercial nerve center of
northern Nigeria. It is interesting that the latest elite transportational war
on the poor is being waged in these cities. Perhaps, before this article is
published, Port Harcourt and Aba will enact their own versions of the cruelly
insensitive transportation policies started by Lagos, Abuja, and Kano.
Now, let me be clear: there is absolutely nothing to
celebrate in Nigeria’s omnipresent commercial motorcycles variously called
"Okada," "Achaba," and “Going.” They are noisy, noisome, dangerous, emit toxic gases,
and make the road experience hellish for everybody. Plus, lately, they have become
the means by which domestic terrorists carry out senseless murders of
innocents. I admit that the ubiquity of commercial motor cycles in our transportation
system is a testament to the terrible state of our development. However, in the
absence of an alternative, motor cycles are the only means of mobility for
millions of our urban working poor and for people in the lower middle class.
It doesn’t require rocket science to figure out that
you don’t arbitrarily ban a popular means of transportation for a people when
you haven’t provided an alternative for them. That’s like imprisoning millions
of people for the “offense” of being poor. But it’s even worse for several others: the
bans on their only means of mobility have meant a death sentence by
installment. The already economically dispossessed, from what I’ve read so far,
are now in a worse shape than they’ve ever been. The working poor are massively
stranded and have a hard time getting to their places of work. The informal
economy, which is driven literally and figuratively by motor cycle
transportation, is in desperate straits. This can’t continue indefinitely.
Something has to give.
In all my travels—and studies of elite governance—I
have never come across a ruling class as viciously cruel, unimaginative, and
nearsighted as Nigeria’s ruling class.
Our leaders just wake up from the luxury of their beds and take knee-jerk and
precipitate decisions without a care for the immediate and long-term
consequences of such decisions on the people they supposedly govern. Nothing
instantiates this tendency more than the rash of unthinking bans on motor cycle
transportation in major cities of Nigeria.
Maybe this is an opportunity to put intra-city
transit to the front burner of public policy in Nigeria. There is no better
time than now for Nigerian governments at all levels to come out with a
coherent, workable transportation system for our major cities. I know of no one
who argues that motor cycles should be a permanent fixture of our
transportation system. But how about intra-city rail systems for our big cities
like Lagos, Kano, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Aba, etc.? In most parts of the world,
cities as big and as densely populated as Lagos, Kano, Abuja, and Aba have
functional internal transportation systems that take city dwellers from point
to point.
That is why in American big cities like New York, Atlanta,
San Francisco, Chicago, etc. transportation is a great social leveler: both the
poor and the not so rich use mass transit services to get to their
destinations. When I lived in the heart of Atlanta for five years, for
instance, I didn’t need a personal car. Atlanta’s transit system, called the
Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority or MARTA for short, took me to
every place I wanted. With it, I avoided the city’s crazy traffic, got to where
I wanted on time, and saved money on gas and parking. (I felt compelled to buy a car a few years ago
only because I’ve moved to Kennesaw, an affluent Atlanta suburb where MARTA
doesn’t operate). Owning a car is a burden in America’s big cities.
Big cities here have efficient mass transit systems
that serve both the rich and the poor. For
example, Michael Bloomberg, New York City’s major and 10th
richest person in America, often occasionally uses
the city’s mass transit trains to go to work. Similarly, Joe Biden, America’s current vice
president, took mass transit trains to work throughout the 30-plus years that
he was a senator.
Can you imagine an FCT minister or a Nigerian
senator in a mass transit bus or train? That would be the day!
The truth is that Nigeria has one of the most
vicious transportational apartheids in the world. In Nigeria, the rich and the
poor are like water and oil: they never mix. And the relational gulf keeps
getting wider and wider every day. That is why governors and ministers can make
glib, lumpen policies that deepen the misery of the poor without any compunction.
They have no frigging clue how the poor live and what struggles they cope with
daily.
But I think Nigeria’s ruling elite are pushing the
masses to their elastic limits. If governments go on banning the only means of
mobility for the poor without providing alternatives, I foresee a violent push
back very soon. And it won’t be pretty for everyone.
Hi. Nice piece as usual. The only omission is that with Okada has since been banned in Port Harcourt since 2008 by the incumbent administration of Rotimi Amaechi.
ReplyDeleteIn ENugu, it exists but is well regulated. It is also in Aba.
Cheers.
Most of this Okada ban has political undertone. I cannot imagine okada ban in my Rural Taraba where he have never had any case of terrorism. Most people beleived that the ban was the fallout of the massive rejection of the Late Governor, Suntai during the last Governorship election. You know he hates Islam and its followers, and he beleives that most of the okada riders are muslims. So banning okada would serve as a punitive measures to the muslim ummah. In other word, “killing“ the muslim ummah economically! But our God, is not a wicked God, he has interven on our behalf; he is now cooling his heels in the hottest region of hell fire. Suntai, my foot!
ReplyDeleteIt is good to write when one have not been affected by the evil perpetuated by Okadas especially when one live in Atlanta. Good for you. Please suggest an alternative to Okada may be Fashola will consider it. Pls note that Fashola did not ban Okada but he restricts their activities outside of the expressways and bridges in Lagos. That is not banning, just restriction.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I am happy to read this piece on the okada ban from someone like you. Perhaps some of the elite may come across it given the wide coverage your articles achieve. This ban of okada use keep giving creepy sensations. Are the ruling class really sensitive to the plights of anyone outside their circle? Don't they know that in places like Kano millions of people practically live on the okada business? The riders, mechanics, spare parts sellers, vulcaniners engine oil sellers and many others wholly rely on the business for survival! To survive comfortably, the elite now have to make million of families hungry, at least for weeks and we say we are doing democracy!
ReplyDelete