LCCI Wants Lagos to Review Ban  on Commercial Motorcycles 

Dike Onwuamaeze

The Lagos State Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has called on the state government to review the current ban on the operation of commercial motorcycles and tricycles in some major highways in the state in order to ameliorate the hardship faced by commuters.

The LCCI said the stakeholders’ engagement would also fine tune the traffic law and enforcement strategies as well as reduce the current wide-ranging routes covered by the restriction, and limit it only to major road corridors.

A statement issued by the agency, which was signed by the Director-General of LCCI, Dr. Muda Yusuf, said the review of the ban was urgent in order to “give some room for the ordinary citizens to commute since laws are made for man and not the other way round.”

Yusuf argued that: “The tolerance and latitude for operation of tricycles should be expanded as they play vital complementary roles to other forms of transportation in the state.  They are affordable, scalable, divisible, flexible and less of a nuisance than the motorbikes.

“Regulatory capacity should be strengthened to ensure traffic discipline among all categories of road users.”

The chamber insisted that strict enforcement of the traffic law in its current form would have profound social, economic and political costs. “Commuters would suffer untold hardship as there is no immediate alternative to fill the gap which the wide-ranging restriction would create.

“There would also be high transportation cost as commuter buses are likely to hike their fares.  They would naturally take advantage of the surge in demand. “There is also the investment effect on emerging innovative investments in the commercial motorbike sector some of which have invested billions of naira in the sector.

“Connectivity of domestic economic agents would suffer a deceleration.  The tempo and momentum of economic activities would experience a slow down as the velocity of business transactions would be adversely affected.  This would also take a toll on the huge and vibrant informal economy in the state. There will also be massive extortion by the enforcement agents,” Yusuf noted.

He noted that the biggest challenge of urbanisation is traffic congestion, which is prevalent in a state like Lagos that has the largest population and the smallest land size in the country.  Therefore, “the growth in the number of vehicles has consistently outpaced the road capacity.  We also recognise the increasing traffic and security nuisance that some of the commercial motorcycles and tricycles has created in the state.  Clearly, these are situations that call for drastic action by the government.

“However, it is important to situate the conversation within the context of a ‘Root Cause Analysis.’  The proliferation of the commercial motorcycles and tricycles in Lagos State is the manifestation of the shortcomings of the transportation system in the state.  They are the symptoms of deeper issues in the transport ecosystem.”

These symptoms, according to Yusuf, include rapid and growing population in the state without commensurate planning for intra-city transportation; rapid urbanisation and internal migration issues because of the security issues in other parts of the country and high vehicular density, intractable traffic congestion and frequent lockdown, especially during peak periods of traffic.