How 1,500 Motorcycles Destroyed By DRTS Escalated Insecurity In Abuja
Some youths whose commercial motorcycles were impounded and thereafter destroyed by officials of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Directorate of Road Traffic Service (DRTS), are now holding residents of the Territory to ransom.
Checks by PRNigeria indicate that some of the owners of the destroyed motorcycles have now embraced crimes to make ends meet.
This is as at it was further gathered that another batch of 1,200 recently impounded ‘Okadas’ will soon be destroyed by the DRTS.
This is because the seizure of their Okadas by the DRTS personnel also known as Vehicle Inspection Officers, (VIOs), has prevented them from carrying out ‘legitimate’ Okada business.
Personnel of the Abuja VIO between January and July 2021 impounded 1,500 motorcycles which were later ‘burnt’ in December 2021.
At the individual cost of N400,000 per motorcycle, the cumulative cost of the 1,500 crushed motorcycles amounted to N600,000 million.
Further checks revealed that the commercial motorcycles were not just impounded arbitrarily but were confiscated as a result of alleged flouting of road traffic regulations in the FCT, which prevent ‘okada men’ from conducting their business on Abuja highways but, within the FCT suburbs.
Following the development, banditry activities, kidnapping, burglary, one-chance attacks, and armed robbery, among other crimes in Abuja have now escalated as the former Okada riders now turned idle victims of the clampdown perpetrate after joining criminal gangs.
Weighing in on the issue, Mr. Chidi Omeje, an Abuja-based security expert, kicked against the VIO’s policy of crushing seized Okada motorcycles.
According to Omeje; “The situation is very bad. It shows the cruelty of government and its agencies towards the masses. There is no need to destroy the legal means of livelihood of some Nigerians.
“By crushing people’s machines, you are breeding prospective criminals, people who have nothing to lose anymore. They are going to unleash their venom and transfer their aggressions on the society”.
Speaking in the same vein, a security analyst and crisis communicator, Senator Iroegbu highlighted the social and security implication of the law regulating commercial motorcycle trade in the FCT.
In the words of Iroegbu; “There is great economic loss as those affected did not just lose only their bikes, but the money they also used in buying them, as well as their means of livelihood.
“There should be a solution that leaves everyone satisfied. That is, the riders should retain their means of livelihood, without posing security and environmental threats to the nation’s capital,” he stressed.
Speaking on the subject matter, the Deputy Controller, Operations at the VIO National Headquarters in Abuja, Mr. Dele Yaro, said that the government is even showing ‘benevolence’ to the Okada riders in the FCT.
Yaro said; “Some countries and even many States in Nigeria have since banned commercial motorcycle business, totally. But here in the FCT, we did not. But only regulated their operations”.
Read the Full Report Here: How Anti-Masses Policy of Okada Destruction is Ruining Lives, Escalating Insecurity in Abuja:
