The Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) says placing a total ban on commercial motorcycles or ‘Okada’ in the FCT will ensure sanity and traffic safety in the federal territory.
This was stated by Mrs Susan Ajenge, FCT Sector Commander of FRSC in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja.
“The ban of Okada within the city centre has drastically reduced the rate of accidents in the area, hence the need to extend the ban to the entire territory for better result.
Before the ban of Okada in the city centre, hospitals and emergency wards were always filled with Okada accidents’ victims, same with mortuaries, but this has drastically reduced as result of the ban".
She further stated that "The same ban should be extended to every part of the territory so that safety and sanity can be achieved in those satellite towns that they operate.
People always think it will bring about hardship on general public but the disadvantages outweigh the advantages.
Total ban on Okada will not kill anyone but will provide safer roads while the public will be made to patronise other means of transportation that are safer" she said.
“At FRSC, we are doing our best to apprehend traffic violators among the commercial motorcyclists in the territory but the more we arrest, the more the number of violators.
“We arrest over 20 commercial motorcyclists on daily basis but they keep on encroaching the highways and causing fatal accidents by riding carelessly on the roads,” she further added.
In a similar development, she advised motorists to avoid blocking roads and entrances while on the queue to buy fuel at the filling stations adding that officers of the command and other sister agencies were moving round to ensure sanity at filling stations while the queues lasted.
Commercial motorcyclists in the FCT, in spite of the ban, operate and violate traffic rules by encroaching on walkways and endangering lives by driving against traffic NAN reports.
The practice is common along Kubwa, Lugbe, Kuje and other satellite towns in the FCT, which sometimes result in killing or maiming other road users.
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