The Lagos State Environmental and Special Offences Unit (Task Force), on Friday, crushed 2,228 impounded commercial motorcycles, popularly called Okada.

The motorcycles were seized after Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, banned their operations in six local government areas of the state.

Speaking on the development, the Task Force chairman, Shola Jejeloye, said there was 85 per cent compliance with the commercial motorcycle ban in the last three days.

Jejeloye, who spoke to newsmen in Ikeja during the crushing of the commercial motorcycles, said the enforcement of the ban would continue, so as to ensure the sanity of the environment.

According to him, the enforcement of the ban did just begin on Wednesday, June 1, but has been in force since February 1, 2020.

“Since then, we have been on it. It is just that people believe in violating the law, which I don’t think is good enough in a cosmopolitan city like this. But since June 1, there have been more than 85 per cent compliance.

“85 per cent compliance in the sense that we don’t see Okada on the roads, on the expressways any longer. The number has drastically reduced.

”They might be of the belief that the first one week of the enforcement will be thorough; after one week we are going to relax, anyway, we will watch and see.

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”I am passing this message to them that from next week, we will do more intense enforcement. Even those areas we cannot get to this week, we are going to extend. So another phase will start on Monday.

”These three first days of enforcement is just to test-run it, to check the number of compliance, then the sustainability plan is the next phase, which we are going to enter on Monday,” the Task Force chairman said.

Jejeloye said that there was no going back on enforcement of the Okada ban, stressing the state government would not make a mockery of its policies and decisions.

Also speaking, the Lagos State Commissioner for Transportation, Dr Frederick Oladeinde, said the government was reforming the transportation sector and integrating all the various modes of transport so that people could move from one mode to the other seamlessly and pay with just one ticket.

Oladeinde said the first and last mile buses rolled out by the government would help to transport residents from where Okada operation was not allowed.

He stated that there were some good Okada riders, noting that the government had spoken with the union and asked them to form a cooperative.

According to him, the government will give them the first and last mile buses, and employ some of them.

The commissioner added: “So, others who do not have skills, we do not want them in Lagos, and that is why you have the enforcement agency to walk around the clock just to make sure that people who do not need to be in Lagos are not in Lagos.

”We want people who have something to contribute to come to Lagos, people who have skills so that we can begin to develop the economic potential of Lagos state.

”So we don’t want anybody just coming into Lagos, just because they can pick up Okada or they can sleep under the bridge. So, this is going to be a resistance to them,” he said.

Oladeinde, therefore, urged the residents of the state to be calm and respect the traffic law and move about their daily businesses, saying the government had provided an alternative to Okada.

The Star