How I suffered yesterday due to Okada ban

My coming to work yesterday was not funny at all!

I stood for at least an hour, 45 minutes on the road just to get a bike and later a bus to work. While we are still dealing with the fuel scarcity that has caused transportation rates to up, Lagos state suddenly banned Okadas from plying some major routes.

I agree absolutely that some Okada men in Lagos state are disasters waiting to happen and you will have your heart in your hands when they take you on a flying ride, but with the state of things in Lagos, coping without them is difficult.

We were almost up to sixty people waiting for a bike from my junction to Cele. When a bike approaches, people will jump on top of the Okada before even saying where they are headed or beating price. When I waited there for longer than normal, I told myself to behave. Haba! I have been in Lagos for years and pride myself with being a Lagosian, so why would I allow myself to dull?

With this thought, not caring the high heeled shoes I had on and the corporate look I sported, I way-laid an Okada man and before he could say Jack Robinson, I had grabbed the helmet from him, sat behind him and said, ‘ Let’s go’. Surprised, the man asked, ‘ where madam’ and I screamed ‘Cele express’.

All the people waiting with me were surprised at the speed while I felt like some James Bond as we sped away.

That feeling drained when I got to Cele. The crowd was crazy. There were no buses and the little that appeared were calling mad rates. I again was subjected to an annoying wait under the early morning sun. When a bus came, the rush was blinding. I even took the opportunity to enjoy the drama played out by one elderly woman who struggled like the rest of us to board the bus.

The slender, tall woman in her 50s ran with the rest of the crowd when a bus arrived and always gets shoved aside by much stronger and younger people. This happened for a number of times and the woman got tired. So when the next bus approached, she threw her tiny nylon bag filled with what-I-don’t-know into the bus first and then put in her head with the rest of her body outside; but a man who was wise enough to put in his buttocks first pushed her head out and sat down.

She was so mad that she started dragging the huge man shouting ‘ you no go enter that bus today… see as you push me. You sef no go enter’. The drama was hilarious. She was more concerned with pulling the man out of the bus that she forgot her package which lay on the floor of the bus. She only remembered it when the bus started to pull away and you needed to see her speeding after the bus asking for her stuff. They eventually threw it out for her and she returned to the waiting crowd with anger written all over her face.

She finally entered a bus after luck brought that person she could push away.

She entered the bus with a victorious smile on her face. Well, I watched all of this while struggling to get a bus. I eventually jumped into a bus after hitting my head on it. The pain was unbearable but I just rubbed it triumphantly. After all, I had outsmarted some huge guys and even ladies; even though that old woman played a fast one.

Well, the bus ride was strange because the driver decided to take an unknown route saying there was traffic jam on the road. I just kept praying to myself and somehow made it to the office albeit the stress and tiredness.

Getting back from work was another film show which I would rather spare you. The bike man that carried me kept filling my ears with what had happened in my area that day. He told me how over 4,000 bikes were seized by Lagos state officials and reminded me that today wouldn’t be any different.

I began to wonder if this Fashola’s law is working for our good. The roads are not many and the existing ones are not too good not with the pot-holes and even man-holes on them. Traffic jam is the order f the day. How are we supposed to cope without the okadas for now? Alternative measures should have been put in place before this clampdown on the okada.

It’s a big deal seeing as most of us are feeling the bite which gets harder every day.

The plenty laws in Lagos are such that you hold your breathe everyday thinking Fashola will spring another one on us. It’s enough already as these dubious officials are enriching themselves and forcing some other people into poverty. Those who cannot deal with the poverty turn to criminals or join the ever growing thread of unemployed. Its good that the menace of okada men be checked but taking them off so abruptly is not helping us, at all.