Over 10,000 Okada riders fled from Niger after ban –SSG

<p><strong>The ban on the operation and sale of motorcycles in Niger State has allegedly forced over 10&comma;000 commercial Okada operators to flee the state&comma; the Secretary to the State Government&comma; SSG&comma; Ahmed Ibrahim Matane has confirmed&period;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Matane who stated this in Minna said with the ban placed on the operations of Okada riders earlier and recently on the sale of motorcycles&comma; the state has started witnessing some relative peace&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>He explained that the ban on the sale of commercial motorcycles was taken to control the activities of bandits who mostly use the motorcycles for their operations&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;When we imposed the ban&comma; the bandits were almost closing in on Minna&comma; the state&period; And&comma; we got an intelligence report that over 300 motorcycles were sold in two days and that’s a very rare sale&period; When we asked&comma; we were told buyers were coming from other states to buy motorcycles in Minna&period; That was why we had to place a ban on the sales of motorcycles&period; With the ban&comma; over 10&comma;000 Okada operators left Niger State and that was when we started noticing some peace around the state&period; This is because 99&percnt; of the activities of bandits are carried out on motorcycles and these same motorcycles are used as ramsons or Jerry cans of fuel among others&comma;” the state govt image-maker disclosed&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>He said those still defying the ban on the movement of motorcycles are Okada riders that came from other states such as Kebbi&comma; Kaduna because they feel it has been strongly enforced in Niger State&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>He also revealed that apart from the killing and kidnapping of people&comma; bandits in some communities in the state are also taxing farmers on their farm produce before they could harvest them and refusal will lead to setting farms on fire&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;We have always thought that the National Government should have a coordinated response that is sustainable with all the level severity&comma; but we have some other challenges in doing that”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>” You see Nigeria today&comma; every state is on its own&period; You pursue your own agenda for you to survive&period; If support comes fine&comma; if it doesn’t you are on your own&period; The citizens will deal with you directly&comma; they dont care whether there is a federal government or not&period; The citizens know their governor&comma; they know the apparatus of the state and they take their issues there to be addressed”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Matane further explained that before the ban&comma; the state government met with Motorcycles dealers in the state&comma; where it was agreed that they should register any customer that purchases more than one motorcycle&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The dealers&comma; according to him&comma; were also supposed to liaise with the state Ministry for Transport and Board of Internal Revenue to ensure that the motorcycles are coded&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The SSG decried the failure of the dealers to honour the decision reached between them that resulted in the sales of over 300 motorcycles without notifying the relevant authority&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>However&comma; Matane expressed optimism that the ban would go a long way to assist in curtailing the operations of bandits in the state&comma; adding&comma;” it’s our prayer that in one or two years time&comma; this whole problem would go away&comma; that’s my prayer every day”&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;