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Okada Riders Responsible For Lagos’ High Crime Rate – Police
The police in Lagos State say statistics have shown that armed hoodlums who operate on motorcycles, popularly known as Okada, are responsible for a greater percentage of crime in the state.
Hakeem Odumosu, the state’s commissioner of police, made this known while appraising the security situation in the state at a stakeholders’ meeting on Monday in Ikeja.
Mr Odumosu said this was so because the hoodlums had found motorcycles as a veritable means of escape from the scene of a crime.
According to Mr Odumosu, crime reports from the field in the last five months have shown that the hoodlums are responsible for armed robbery, cultism, kidnapping, murder, burglary, and stealing, among others.
”It has also been established of Okadas being illegally used as a veritable means of conveying hard drugs from one point to another.
“The consequences of spreading of hard drugs and its consumption are better imagined than said.”
The police chief said traffic robbery, carjacking, movement of arms, and cash-snatching from bank customers had been traced to armed hoodlums who operate on Okada.
Mr Odumosu said a large section of Lagos’ populace had come to regard commercial motorcycles as a necessary evil, hence, the government should take more drastic measures against their notoriety.
He said that in the five months under review (January to May 9), 192 Okada riders had died from 280 accidents.
The CP said the number of deaths recorded in road accidents and crime committed with the use of Okada across the state had assumed a worrisome dimension as the statistics had continued to rise.
He said the available record in the command revealed that in January 90 Okada accidents occurred; February (76), March (101), April (84) while in May till date 34 Okada accidents had been recorded.
He said out of the 192 deaths, February recorded 37 cases of deaths, March had 58 fatality cases while 14 died within 7 days in May.
Mr Odumosu said Okada accidents on the roads were mostly caused by the recklessness and lawlessness of the riders.
He said it was a common sight in Lagos metropolis to see Okada operators ride recklessly on highways, facing oncoming road users, especially during peak periods.
He urged the state government to provide further stringent measures that would curtail the excesses of commercial motorcycle operators.