The New Lagos Traffic Law states that motorcycles of below two hundred engine capacity can no longer be allowed to ply highways and cross bridges across the state. The law went further to state that all commercial motorcycles are also demanded to wear crash helmet at all times and to restrict their operations between six in the morning and eight in the evening.
Ever since the beginning of this law in 2012, scores of motorcycles below two hundred engine capacity have been impounded wrongfully despite their adherence to the law. For crying out loud, we have seen police in broad day-light harass and seize motorcycles from riders even with their helmets on in streets that can not in any way be described as highways or bridges.
As early as 2:00am on Wednesday, 5th of March, about thirteen RRS patrol van filled with fully armed mobile police accompanied by two large trucks stormed Alakoto area in our beloved Olodi-Apapa-Ajegunle and impounded over a hundred parked motorcycles leaving only the very few ones that have two hundred capacity engine. They employed all forms of brutality in breaking the locks and chains as they loaded the motorcycles into the trucks before carting away with them.
You can imagine the astonishment and misery that greeted unsuspecting okada riders who came at day-break to pick up their motorcycles ready to go to work. This is pure injustice and assault at the highest level to okada riders. After all, how many trailers have been impounded in the name of this same law that states that trailer is no longer allowed to enter the state or move around the metropolis between the hours of six in the morning and nine at night.
