COMMERCIAL motorcycle riders, popular referred to as ‘Okada riders’, today clashed with a police taskforce team in the Idiaraba area of Lagos State, Southwest Nigeria.
Eyewitnesses said irate motorcyclists attacked members of the police team who had gone to the area to enforce the recently announced ban on commercial motorcycle operations, which became effective on June 1, 2022.
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People scampered for safety as sounds of gunshots rent the air near the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, and security operatives attempted to disperse scores of protesters. The environment became dark and covered with smoke from burning vehicles.
The Lagos State government announced the ban on okada operations in six local government areas.
But a union of commercial motorcycle riders had gone to court on Friday June 3 to sue the state government, praying the court to rule that the ban was illegal, unlawful and unconstitutional.
The state government had seized over 2000 motorbikes since the ban took effect and began crushing them barely 72 hours after, an action a Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG) said targeted northern operators.
“We note that of recent, state governments in the South have resorted to imposing and enforcing controversial, unfriendly and damaging legislations that effectively curtail the right to freedom of movement of the northern people living in their midst.
“More disturbing is that like in the current case of Lagos, the enforcers of these discriminatory laws almost all the time fail to draw the decent distinction between the northerner as citizen, or commercial motorcycling as an occupation, from criminality, ” spokesperson of the group, Abdul-Azeez Suleman said.
Suleiman warned that the action contradicts provisions of the Nigerian 1999 Constitution as amended and could act as a catalyst for further conflicts.