Friday 9 November 2012

Kay Aishida: This madness, a mega-joke (Y! Superblogger)


How can you get yourselves an army of losers to enforce your policies?
Honestly, I’m very angry right now. Extremely angry. I mean,what nonsense is this?
For your information, I’m a Lagosian and I’m also thick in the middle of this madness. I mean,what is this?
Of course, I’m referring to the ban on ‘okada’ riders by our State Government. What else could I be talking about?
Truth is that I’ve heard all arguments for and against. Many have spoken logically and most have spoken sentimentally but one thing I know for sure, this episode affects everyone one way or another and if not properly handled, it could degenerate into something no one bargained for.
Luckily for me, I’m now self-employed so I don’t have to fall into that routine I was enslaved in when I was a 5-9 worker. That isn’t an error, I wasn’t really a 9-5 person in the pure sense of it. I count it from when I leave home to when I get back. 5am to 9pm! That is the life of the typical Lagosian and it wasn’t easy. But one plowed on just to make that living but our leaders have this knack for making things so much harder for the citizens.
I laud this administration’s effort to convert the state into a mega-city but they always all seem to make the same mistakes – they always put the cart before the horse. ALWAYS!!!
Now tell me, how does the ban on ‘okada’ make Lagos a mega-city?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not rooting for ‘okadas’. I think they’re one of the unsafest modes of transportation. I’ve seen first-hand the harm they cause. I lost my dad to one just last year but I want to address an issue here. I need answers to some questions I got:
Now that you’ve taken away the means of transportation for hundreds of Nigerians, is there an alternative?
While dreaming up this mega-city plan, wouldn’t it have been better to 1st invest in solid railways like the ones in the mega-cities we’re trying so hard and badly to emulate?
Are the buses we have available even nearly enough to cater for all the commuters we have?
Is every road motorable?
How do we get to those nooks and crannies in Lagos where buses don’t get to and only ‘okadas’ can sniff out?
Now that you’ve taken away and ‘crushed’ the means of livelihood of thousands of breadwinners, what next? Is there a plan for them? To monitor them?
If the ‘okada’ riders take to crime like they’re being forced to, do you have the manpower and firepower to tackle the menace?
Do you just assume they’ll all get frustrated and return back to their villages?
I need sensible answers to these questions because our safety as Lagosians might just depend on it. I’ll be fine if a reader explains to me something I’m missing here. I probably haven’t seen the big picture so I need someone to show me.
The way I see it, people in this country just come up with ‘cool’ policies and ruin it all with the way they enforce. How can you get yourselves an army of losers to enforce your policies? I mean, I saw a van carrying a number of seized bikes away just last week and I saw a dispatch rider’s bike among the confiscated bikes.
From my understanding, even dispatch riders are culpable? For crying out loud, there are dispatch riders in even Mega-cities!
I guess if you don’t own a powerbike or a Harley-Davidson, you can’t ride a bike in Lagos as a private bike owner.
Are these enforcers well educated to understand how to enforce or are they just sent out like a group of Zombie dogs to execute the will of their master?
The worst part is that all these is in the midst of a lingering fuel crisis so folks have to trek to work or to their homes. Is this the mega-city dream our governor envisioned?
I call it all a joke… A mega-joke!
God bless Lagos. God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
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I’m simply known to my readers as BlogAces. Predictably, my posts are called BlogAce’s Posts and I tweet from @. I write about life generally and try to lace it with humour. Enjoy it!

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