Okada Rider

 Written by Blessed Adjekpagbon

There are three different categories of motorbike riders in Nigeria. They are "Okada" riders, Dispatch riders and Power bike riders. The brand and quality of the bike determines the type of service it is usually used for according to government regulations. 

Among the three categories, an Okada rider is the most popular because a lot of folks in the city patronize him as a commercial motorcyclist. He can navigate to rugged nooks and crannies where commercial cabs and buses cannot access. Therefore, Okada is a local word used among Nigerians to identify a commercial motorcyclist.

Different factors distinguish an Okada rider from both the dispatch or power bike riders. Firstly, it is an individual commercial motorcycling business for transporting folks and goods to different places within a suburb or from one suburb to another.

Unlike an okada rider, a dispatch rider works for a particular courier company. He delivers small parcels to clients on behalf of the company he works for. In most cases, a delivery box is usually mounted on the position of the bike's back seat. However, a power bike rider is a private individual that uses his highly superior machine for his personal movement at a fast pace to wherever he likes.

Both the dispatch and power bikes' riders are usually well kitted with safety helmets to protect their skulls from cracking in case they get involved in an accident. But most or nearly all okada riders in Nigeria don’t wear safety helmets despite government rules and regulations that ordered them to do so.

The second difference is that an average okada rider belongs to a special union of "Okada Riders Welfare Association of the National Union of Road Transport Workers" in the country. He operates in any branch of the association he chooses to ply especially in Lagos. He pays tax daily to the association, unlike a dispatch or power bike rider. This makes him always eager to make as much money as he could to cover his daily expenditures on tax, fuel and maintenance of his bike. The back seat of the bike that is meant for carrying one passenger at a time is sometimes used to carry two or more passengers to make extra money. He is fond of meandering sometimes dangerously between many cars or vehicles whenever he runs into traffic jam. He does so like a snake running between trees in an orchard, to get to his destination as fast as possible. This is one of the reasons a lot of folks patronize him.

Despite their appreciable contributions towards making some Nigerians overcome the delays caused by traffic jams, many okada riders are not professionally trained. Although there are a lot of graduates practicing okada riding in various places in the country, the majorities of the riders are illiterates and disobey traffic laws. This has caused a lot of avoidable accidents on the roads.

Prior to the advent of commercial motorcycling business in Nigeria's major cities such as Lagos, Kano, Warri and Port Harcourt to mention a few, the informal act of using motorbike as a means of transporting people from place to place was commonplace mostly in underdeveloped or rural environments of the country. 

As time went by, as the population of the country began to increase astronomically, it caused serious rural - urban drift. For instance, as people keep trooping from rural areas into the city of Lagos to look for greener pastures in the face of continuous yearly increase in the production of graduates by Nigeria's higher institutions on one hand, and lack of employment opportunities to accommodate them on the other, many took to "Okada riding" as a source of making a living.

Nonetheless, to be a successful okada rider in a vast commercial city like Lagos, one should have a great knowledge of the roads networks. Whether an okada rider is operating within the streets in a suburb or plying the major expressways, he has to be able to appropriately calculate how much fuel he will burn to cover a distance to and fro. This will enables him to charge the right amount of money from any passenger that solicits his service. If he is not good at calculating the cost of fuel required for transporting passengers or goods to and fro any given destination, he may run into a loss.

In conclusion, the business of a commercial motorcyclist is very dangerous as an average ckada rider in Nigeria is always in a haste to make money, and disobeys traffic laws most times. Several accidents have been recorded between some reckless drivers and okada riders in Lagos. Some vehicles’ drivers see an average commercial motorcyclist as a rival contesting speed with them on the expressways. Therefore, an okada rider operating on any expressway is usually exposed to getting knocked down either due to the recklessness of some vehicles drivers or due to negligence of traffic rules and regulations by commercial motorcyclists.

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