Okada riders

By Gboyega Akinsanmi

Lagos State Government weekend warned all operators of commercial motorcycles popularly known as  Okada to steer clear of all highways and bridges across the states, insisting that the executive order  restraining  their activities in the designated routes still subsists.

This came as a four-week ultimatum was handed down  to cattle dealers at the Oko-Oba cattle market in the Agege area of the state to vacate and remove their shanties from the roads leading to the market or face the full wrath of the law.

General Manager of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA), Mr. Babatunde Edu, who gave the warning to the commercial motorcycle operators, in a statement, asked them to be safety conscious and law abiding at all times.

While lamenting the operations of okada riders on the main carriageways such as Third Mainland Bridge, Ikorodu Road, Carter Bridges, Funsho Williams Avenue and Lekki-Epe-Eti-Osa Expressway amongst others, Edu expressed the strong will of the State government not to relent in its effort to maintain law and order on the roads, observing that operators are fond of flouting traffic laws with little or no respect for other road users.

On the cattle dealers, Commissioner for the Environment, Mr. Tunji Bello, gave the ultimatum during the monthly environmental sanitation monitoring in Ojokoro yesterday , stating that the state government would no longer tolerate anti-development activities in the state. 

While frowning at the environmental degradation at the Oko-Oba cattle market, he lamented the rate at which shanties “have sprung up as well as the indiscriminate parking of trailers by the roadside.” He therefore warned the cattle traders to change and clean up the entire area within four weeks, saying that government “will not hesitate to shut down the market by the end of August if they do not comply”.