Last Friday, the Lagos State Government, announced they had destroyed 2,230 impounded motorcycles, popularly called Okada over violation of the state’s Okada Ban.
Now, the Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG) has said the action by the state government was targeted at northerners and therefore was completely unacceptable. A lot of motorcycle operators or Okada riders as they’re also called are northerners.
A statement by CNG Spokesperson, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, noted that it was “rash, irrational, insensitive and wicked”. Since announcing the ban, the Lagos State Government would in just 72 hours, seize and subject 7,548 bikes, mostly owned and operated by northerners to the crusher.
The statement said,
“We note that of recent, State governments in the South have resorted to imposing and enforcing controversial, unfriendly and damaging legislation 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.
“To the makers of these laws and their formal and informal enforcers, it matters little that just because some Okada riders commit certain breaches does not make all motorcyclists criminals.
“In fact, they are enforcing the laws without taking into consideration that the vast majority of northerners in Lagos – including those who are Okada operators – are peaceful everyday people with the same needs, anxieties and hopes as the rest of Nigerians.”
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He also added,
“This brutal encroachment by the Lagos State government on the right of northerners to freedom of movement, freedom of association and other fundamental human right safeguards, is eroding the consciousness that for decades, different tribes in Nigeria have been accommodated and tolerated in the North, without their hosts enacting discriminatory laws specifically to intimidate, harass and endanger them, their families, their properties or their trades.”
