Abuja residents and security personnel have been warned to desist from patronising commercial Motorcycles otherwise known as Okada riders, due to the rising traffic rules violation on major roads in the nation’s capital city.
This warning was handed down on day-2 of FCT Directorate of Road Traffic Services (DRTS) otherwise known as Vehicle Inspection Office (VIO), operation Fire-For-Fire against motorcyclists violating traffic rules especially those plying one-way along the AYA- Nyanya axis of Abuja-Keffi expressway.
Making this point yesterday, the Head of the FCT DRTS Taskteam, Adamu Shehu Maiwada, said that patronage of Okada riders is the major obstacle they are having while enforcing the prevailing extant traffic regulations.
Maiwada said, “On the second day of the exercise, about 52 commercial motorcycles, 10 delivery motorcycles, 5 vehicles, and eight tricycles were apprehended and impounded for violation of various traffic rules.
“And every day, we keep warning them (those bent on taking one-way, operating in restricted areas, but honestly, I don’t know why they keep doing so.
“That’s why we are still warning and advising people indulging in such menace, especially those patronising them, to ensure that they desist from doing so.”
He continued: ” Like what happened this morning; security personnel was challenging our authority, after being caught on an Okada taking one-way.
“So, we are having obstacles from some of the security personnel that are always giving us problems. And it’s mainly those staying outside the barracks that are giving us problems.
“It’s not even that they are riding commercial motorcycles, what they do is they enter Okada from such areas to the town, and they try to intervene when you’re about to arrest the rider, and if you refuse, they try to make an issue of it.
“And because of Esprit De Corp we always allow them to go, but sometimes, we insist on stopping and confiscating the motorcycles, as no one is been spared from the clampdown.
“However, we are receiving support from the top hierarchy of the security agencies in the FCT, especially the commander of Mogadishu Cantonment (formerly Abacha Barracks) has given us maximum support. And some of the personnel committing such offences are punished accordingly.”
According to him, the confiscated Delivery motorcycles always arraign them in the Mobile Court, while those used for Okada activities are seized forever, because of an existing ban on their operations in the nation’s capital city.
On the second day of the ongoing reinvigorated traffic rules enforcement drive, the DRTS Task team took its operation Fire for Fire to notorious spots in Kugbo, Barracks, AYA roundabout, behind ECOWAS Secretariat, Asokoro District Hospital.
The team also raided Okada riders and Keke operators plying restricted areas within the busy Apo roundabout, Gudu and Apo resettlement NEPA junction.
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