Monday morning was welcomed with myriad of plight as men and women hit the street with their feet in smart suits and ties-haggling and wriggling for the available rickety buses since there were no more bikes (or tricycles). Fares hiked, and prices surged. Doesn’t that happen whenever there is excess demand over supply?
On the 27th of January, the Lagos state government announced the ban of bikes and tricycles, which was to take effect from the 1st of February hinged on motorbikes increasing accident rate as well as the crime-aiding activities associated with bikes.
While this might be the right move in alignment with the goal of making Lagos a mega-city, is this not making the state a Cobra effect Case study? Originating from the famous British Colonisation of India saga, the British were concerned about the increasing size of poisonous snakes and offered a bounty to local citizens who killed the poisonous snakes, this worked for a while until the denizens started rearing snakes in anticipation to make more money from killing them and showing the officials the evidence. Scintillating right?
From a manpower planning perspective, taking off more than one million bike riders and tri-cycle owners without providing any alternative means of support system is trying to quench a rising inferno with a gallon of petrol. As the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi said; “While He (Sanwoolu) has his reasons for doing this, he has two major problems to battle, crime and unemployment”.
From Breadwinners of the family whose major source of income is their bikes and tricycles to independent youths who use it as a supporting source of income, rendering a remarkable percentage jobless would increase the crime they are trying to curb.
Wearing a macro-economic lens, this action is a surge in unemployment rate as well as a leakage in the economy as the circular flow of income that exists between citizens and the service providers has been disrupted, the hours now spent in traffic would increase and productivity of employees would reduce drastically because they are now soused in the fear of getting to work early and leaving early enough to beat the already existing traffic. A familiar story?
From a policy perspective, banning bikes might reduce accidents, or so did the Commissioner for information and strategy, Gbenga Omotosho say, but shouldn’t Section 15 (1) of the Lagos traffic reform law, 2018 be upheld? The ban of bikes with less than 200 cc might be justified but what about hail riders like Oride and Gokada with more than 200 cc, are they not safe too? (cc means cubic centimetres, which indicates the amount of gas/how powerful the cylinder of a bike is, the higher the cc, the more powerful a bike, and the safer it is, ceteris paribus).
Could this policy have been executed in a better way? The influx of hail riders like Goakada, Maxokada, Oride and other related services was a great relief to citizens as people prefer to take them ahead of the normal bikes, they have proved effective efficient, and safer than the normal bikes. The government could have given a three to six months ultimatum, mandating all bikes to use helmet, knee shields and other protective measures, bikes could have been registered under a large umbrella at different designated local government to make each bike traceable and easily identifiable in case any is used to perpetuate crime. Tricycles could have been regularised, with stringent laws and consequences whenever rules are flaunted, all these would have eased the pressure of unemployment and still achieve the goal of being safe.
The last few days have been horrendous for commuters and neither the 65 buses nor the potential boats can alleviate the immense pressure bikes and tricycles bear daily. While the government has the lofty dreams of making Lagos a megacity, they should face the harsh reality that Lagos is a continuously growing, incessantly expanding state with multiplier effects at any policy.
From the banning of Alcohol in Cuba in 1920, to the war on drugs in America, every cobra-effect case study started with a good intention but ended up being worse than the initial state. The banning of bikes and tricycles might seem like a step forward however if the last few days are signs of things to come, then the government might have just taken a thousand steps backwards.
Emmanuel Faith is an Associate of Chartered Institute of Personnel Management, and the author of the Self-development book “Chronicles of an intern”. He can be reached via mail on [email protected]
