TheCable

Gidado Shuaib, publisher of News Digest, an online newspaper, has asked the Lagos government to create jobs for motorcycle riders affected by the okada ban in the state.

Shuaib said this in a statement issued on Wednesday.

Babajide Sanwo-Olu, governor of Lagos, had announced a ban on okada operations in six LGAs of the state, which took effect on June 1.

The LGAs affected by the ban include Ikeja, Surulere, Eti Osa, Lagos Mainland, Lagos Island and Apapa.

The directive was announced days after some commercial motorcyclists allegedly lynched a sound engineer identified as David Imoh in the Lekki axis of the state.

Speaking on the ban, Shuaib said the state government needs to address other aspects that will be affected by the decision.

“We can’t just make laws and say we are making bans. We also need to look at other aspects of the bans as well,” he said.

“All stakeholders needs to be involved. For instance, an influx of three million people who trooped into Lagos in the while are people who engage in commercial motorcycles. What will happen to these kind of people who leave the market? So, I think automatically, the government needs to think about creating job opportunities. They need to make sure that means of livelihood are being improved for people.

“The people who have been banned from this will definitely go back into the streets in a situation where there is no job.

“Another thing we need to look into closely about the ban is that a lot of the roads on the streets of Lagos are not good, and it’s only motorcycles that could ply these roads.

“For instance, we are talking about local government empowerment. You don’t expect the federal government to go and start fixing street roads. So, these are the roads that local government need to do. It’s necessary for us to empower our local government.”