Okada Ban: House C’tee Chair told us everything (Read here)

Recently, the Oyo State House of Assembly passed the “Control of Commercial Motorcycles ( Further Amendment) Bill 2019” which stipulates some restrictions on the operations of Commercial operations in the state.

In this chat with Ametrocopy, Honourable Olatunde Kehinde, Akinyele II, who is the Chairman House Committee on Works and Transport gave more insights on the bill.

You recently proposed a bill on the floor of the house to ban the operations of the commercial motorcycle in Oyo state and to place a ban on them as early as 10pm. What exactly is the content of this bill and what is the motive behind it?

Thank you so much. The bill originally was enacted in 1995 and that should be a decree. The stipulated time that was given to them was 7pm but we sat as a committee and we looked at it that 7pm is not too good because of the economy of the state and the country at large. That is why we decided to move it like three hours up so that it would be much more later than 7pm and also because of the security of the state. There is this petition that we had from the public; in a certain area, armed robbers came; 4 motorcycles and 4 people on each, that is about 16 people which is massive and they had a free day because of their numbers. Those are the things we actually put into thinking before coming up with this.

What are you going to do to incorporate various Motorcycle Unions in Oyo State?

This bill wouldn’t have seen the light of the day. This bill had been before I became the chairman of this committee of works. It had been trying to rear it’s head, it had been having this hiccups until this final moment when we came. My predecessor had meetings together with some of these bodies. If you look at the documentary that BCOS has, some riders, it was well with them. I even heard some of them say that whatever one has done from 6am till 10pm is enough to go home for the day. And we know well enough that this 10pm we pushed it to, they will still want to add another one hour so maybe by 11. This was why we moved it to 10pm because we know if we move it up to 11pm, they will move it to 12am. Although some of them did not take it well saying it is too early but humans will be humans. Even if we move it up to 1am, we will still find some grumblings.

Formulation of policies is one thing, enforcing it is another. How do you intend to enforce this?

Once it becomes a law, the law enforcement agents most especially those who the law stipulates to fight crime like the Police will be the ones to enforce the law.

Are you looking to start from Ibadan or it’s across the state?

Oyo State, but when you are talking about Oyo State, it will be enforced first in the big areas like Ibadan, Oyo and all these environs.

What provisions have you made for private Okada owners?

Mostly, those that will break this law are not private riders. They are the commercial ones because they do lurk around motor parks waiting for someone who comes late into the city and looking for a way to go home. So that’s where we come in; it’s mostly the commercial riders that break this law.

Is there a way to tell the private apart from the commercial motorcycles?

The registration. In the bill, we made it mandatory for registration of the motorcycles to get a rider’s permit. This is where there will be a demarcation. There will also be differentiation between private and commercial motorcycles.