Frankly Speaking Between Lagos bike ban,Sokoto,Zamfara WAEC tango:The real dangers

By Tunde Abatan, tunde2013abatan@gmail.com 08165660217

What a week,what a life and what a country!

As yours truly was ruminating over the topic of my column this week in a country of one day one problem, a friend and colleague in the walk with God, suddenly passed on .

As it was in Sokoto, engineer killed over N100 in Lagos

We were together the last 24hrs before his sudden passage this very sad Sunday morning.

But then, since we are all mortals,God the giver and taker of life has found it time to call home brother Johnson Edeh!
Rest in peace, good soldier of Christ.

When last week,Lagos state government obviously tired of it’s going back and forth over taken firm decision in arresting security and social challenges faced by it, ordered a total ban of motorcycle operators otherwise known as Okada, in just six local government areas in the state -just six, all hell was let loose.

While one is not surprised about the resistance of the ‘stakeholders’ given the privilege and economic benefits to both intinerant operators and their sponsors, one is surprised and taken aback by their selfish and evil demands from government.

Messrs Salisu Waziri,Ibrahim Ngoma and Iliyasu Kira, Seriki Obalende, Ajah and Alimosho areas of Lagos respectively in their reaction boldly told Babajide Sanwoolu,governor of Lagos state, that it is either he unbans their unruly operators or lose their vote and by extension his office.

Insecurity: Sales of motorcycles banned in Niger

As for them, in separate interviews and press statements, the state should consider their strong voting population before unleashing the ban which to all sane inhabitants of this swelling metropolis came at the right time.

According to them , it is either, “Our Vote or Your life”, they seem to be telling Sanwoolu.

While the trio separately admitted that their unruly, disorderly and violent members have brought fear and agony to Lagos residents, they accused the government of failing to register their operations.
They also admitted that there are foreigners among them.

In the face of the impunity of his men, Iliyasu Kira boasted that the voting population of Hausa/Fulani and foreigners from that axis of Nigeria, “is not what the government can joke with”.

This you will agree,is a Fatwah of sorts for Sanwoolu, APC and the enraged public now afraid of every other Okada rider for their level of violence,impunity and audacity to law enforcement agents .

What is more,in the face of lack of state police what else can the state use to enforce it’s laws given the imperfections in the command control of the police and it’s politics.

It is not news that because of the above limitations, the Okada riders have in the past week, violently engaged and challenged police and other law enforcement agencies enforcing the ban.

Ironically, in a country where impunity and might reigns supreme, the Okada riders especially those of Northern extraction who constitute the most difficult to control by law enforcement agents, failed to look back home and reflect why they have suddenly found themselves worthy only for a permanent job as Okada riders in a foreign land.

They also failed to reason why Sokoto, a state in their Northern enclave, have refused to pay and register their kits and kin for West African Examination Council,WAEC examination this year. This preference came at a time their governor, Aminu Tambuwal, can conveniently obtain a princely N50million nomination form to contest for Presidency under the platform of his party, the People’s Democratic Party PDP.

You also wonder why nobody in the state questioned why the government said unless WAEC provide Tax Identification Numbers,TIN (saying rather audaciously), it would not pay.

To Sokoto government,the future of the thousands of school leavers means nothing as long as they can join the thousands of their mates who have left school but condemn to riding Okada on foreign lands to survive while those not too fortunate can join the growing army of Boko Haram, now a source of worry to other Nigerians for their trade in drawing blood from fellow citizens.

As for Zamfara state, where religious piety came to governance by introduction of Sharia through former Governor Abdullahi Yerima in 2000, being indebted to WAEC for three years for enrolling their children to participate in an examination that will lift them up from poverty is no big deal.

By his states indebtness, Governor Bello Matawalle of Zamfara is saying that he prefers spending billions of naira to buy Limousines at state expense for traditional rulers than to pay WAEC fees for three years!

As for him, since there is a ready recruitment ground provided by exportation of intinerant Okada riders to Lagos and other southern states and open recruitment into banditry of which his state is the recruitment capital, he can go to sleep.

It is also true that since he is not bothered that the state led the way in exportation of the vices to other states in the country, they should absorb his failures or go to hell!

Afterall,Nigeria is a unitary contraption where the hardworking and enterprising slaves for the indolent and privileged.

For Sokoto ,Zamfara, Kano and sixteen other Northern states,for as long as Lagos which had a monthly Value Added Tax,VAT of N45billion is still funding it’s lifestyle, life goes on.

For them, late Obafemi Awolowo saying that he prefers an unemployed graduate to thousands of unemployed illiterates makes no sense.

In other words, as far as the nineteen northern states are concerned,they are less bordered for as long as the field is open to absorb more recruitments to join it’s growing army of 15 million youths.
To them, life goes on.

Life also goes on for the states for as long as quota system,federal character and the criminal structural imbalance in the country which has continue to accord undue privilege to it’s idle sons and daughters remains unchanged.

As for them, since job opportunities and limitations for advancement are deliberately placed on the way of their Southerner counterparts for the benefit of their lazy kit and kins, life goes on.

For the Northern states and its ruling political elite and their soul mates in the South, life goes on for as long as unearned monthly federal allocations from oil and VAT income continues.

But definitely,what will not go on for long is the near end to their callous rule with the growing army of ill informed and ignorant religious extremists whose reign of intolerance and violence may soon consume the country if not checked.

No nation ever survived a religious war.
Hence, it is doubtful whether Nigeria with it’s carefree attitude to curbing rising grinding poverty,ignorance, religious intolerance mixed with violence can survive in the midst of glaring inequalities among it’s citizens.
Interesting times ahead for the country.