Lagos okada ban leaves a transport gap and tired commuters
Banned because of reckless driving, the bike taxis are sorely missed in the traffic-congested city
Lagos — It is dark when Abisoye Adeniyi leaves home on the packed Lagos mainland, weaving through cars and minibuses. She reaches her bus stop as the sun rises. The Nigerian lawyer used to hop on a motorbike — known locally as an okada — for a quick ride to the bus that carries her from the mainland, where most of Lagos’s 20-million residents live, to work in the island business district.
Since the bikes, along with motorised yellow rickshaws called kekes, became illegal in most of the city on February 1, Adeniyi has added a 30-minute walk to her journey — stretching the commute to nearly two hours. “It has not been easy at all,” she said...
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