Ninety-three commercial motorcyclists popularly known as okada riders and suspected hoodlums have been arrested by the Lagos State Task force on Environment and other Special Offence Unit.
The suspects Photo credit: The Punch Newspaper
According to The Punch, the suspects, who were arrested in Oshodi, Agege, Ojuelegba and Iju-Ishaga areas of the state were accused of being hemp smokers and illegal occupants of abandoned buildings.
A large number of them were okada riders and were also tagged as an environmental nuisance by the government. Among them are 3 female teenagers and 90 males.
The task force Chairman and a Superintendent of Police, Mr Akeem Adedeji, said: “We won’t back down. This arrest will serve as a clear warning to those bent on fomenting trouble and other law breakers that government will not condone indiscipline and environmental nuisance. There is no hiding place for law breakers in Lagos.”
“We are also clamping down on street traders on major highways. Many of them have become armed robbers. We are getting complaints from the residents and motorists. The Lagos State Government frowns on street trading, begging and touting,” he said.
The task force chairman revealed that most of the suspects were between ages of 12 and 15, adding that they would be screened, while the teenagers would be taken to juvenile homes in the state.
Adedeji said Governor Akinwunmi Ambode’s administration was committed to the protection of lives and property to attract more investors and make life easy for the residents.
One of the arrested girls, Zainab Kamal,19, said she paid N50 alongside with the others, numbering about 50, to sleep where she was arrested in Oko Mola in Oshodi.
Meanwhile, the Lagos state chairman of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), Tajudeen Agbede, has appealed to the state government to review the ban placed on okada riders on some roads in the metropolis.
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