Okada Finally Ban In Delta States

DELTA State Commissioner for Transport, Mr. Benson Igbakpa, has said
there was no going back on the ban on commercial motorcycles,
popularly known as Okada, as the ban takes effect today.

He made it clear that the restriction would begin today in Warri,
Asaba and Effurun, warning that the ban did not exclude private
motorcycle users.
He said: "Anybody who may claim to be using his or her motorcycle for
private purposes or haulage should construct a carriage at the back
signifying that it is not a passenger motorcycle.
"With the transport arrangements already on ground, we can move as
much as 21,000 passengers at a time. So there is no going back on the
November 1 take off date for the restriction order because the state
governor, Dr.Emmanuel Uduaghan, has beenmagnanimous enough."
Governor Uduaghan had extended the ban by one month to enable a better
take off of the system.
Already, the presence of tricycles on the streets of Asaba has become
prominent in the last couple of days.
While some passengers that usually patronized Okada told our reporter
that they were not comfortable with the ban as the tricycles would not
be able to go into rough terrains, others heaved a sigh of relief over
the ban.
Commissioning 1,250 tricycles to be used in place of motorcycles, the
governor had warned politicians not to interfere with the distribution
of the tricycles as it was exclusively reserved for commercial
motorcycle operators.

The governor, who subsidized the cost of the tricycles up to 70 per
cent, from N400,000 to N150,000, warned operators of the tricycles to
restrict themselves to routes approved for them.

He noted that the introduction of the tricycles was to replace and
gradually phase out commercial motorcycles as partof measures to
ensure safety inthe transport sector and promote security in the
state.
Source:- Vanguard