By Taofeek LAWAL, Abuja
At least no fewer than 115 commercial motorcycles popularly known as Okada were confiscated during a raid by officials of the FCT Directorate of Road Traffic Services (DRTS) otherwise known as Vehicle Inspection Office (VIO), in Kubwa, Bwari Area Council, Abuja.
The DRTS officials in a joint operation with FCTA Command and Control Task-team on City Sanitation clamped down on the okada operators from various hot spots within the Kubwa metropolis, for flaunting the ban on okada and constituting nuisance in the area. The operation lasted for hours.
The enforcement team raided major Kubwa streets notorious for okada operations including a two-storey building, an unoccupied residential situated at number 214 Bakori Road, where over 30 motorcycles were discovered and confiscated.
Speaking after the exercise, Head of FCT DTRS Taskteam, Adamu Shehu Maiwada, said the joint operation was aimed at getting the city rid of environmental and security concerns from the operations of commercial motorcyclists within Kubwa and and other prohibited in Abuja. Maiwada added though that okada have been banned from operating in Kubwa and other designated places in the city,he said the operators are bent on causing all sort of nuisance in the city.
He said the Task-force will not relent in its efforts to sustain the exercise to rid the city of okada menace.
“Preliminary report generated so far revealed that we have caught over one hundred and fifteen motorcycles during today’s operation, in Kubwa. Everyday, we are out there on the streets, clamping down on contravening okada riders, which we will continue until the order is maintained. In order to sustain the tempo of this kind of raid, we are going to keep going after them, to ensure that there’s strict compliance with the ban on operations of commercial motorcyclists in anywhere around Kubwa and other parts of the city centre,” he said.
