A veteran of the Nigerian Civil War veteran, Alhaji Ahmed Adoke, has cautioned the federal government on its plan to ban the use of commercial motorcycles (Okada) in the country.
Adoke, in a statement issued Friday in Lokoja, said the reason adduced by the government to justify the planned ban “is not only ridiculous, but an admission of failure that the government has no solution to the security challenges.”
He said the failure of the government to provide jobs for the teeming university graduates had forced them to opt for the job of commercial motorcycles, adding that any attempts to enforce a ban could spell doom for the nation.
“For such a ban to be meaningful and acceptable, the government must first find an alternative means of livelihood for the millions of the Nigerian youth who have taken to Okada riding to keep their lives together,” he said.
Adoke advised that other means of transportation must be provided for market men and women as well as civil servants to enable them to keep up with the realities of the present economic hardships.
He said that using insurgency, banditry and terrorism as reasons to impose a ban on Okada “will not be acceptable to Nigerians.”
