Nigeria Content Online

The Broom has done it again.

This time it is the
Okada that ended up at its wrong end. In one clean swoop, the broom
flogged them off our roads and into the bin. Away with the nuisance,
they chant. The Okada don’t fit into the plan for the Mega City, which
the Broom peddles. The Okada must go. Now they are gone.

The Broom has swept
the Okada away yet the traffic is still there, as alive as ever. Even
with the Okada, reporting to work on time was a challenge. Now everyone
is wondering but the Broom has provided us no alternatives. They will
adjust with time they say.

It doesn’t matter how. We are just meant to adjust.

The Broom has done
it again and someone says the worst hit are the policemen. Their take
home pay has just been reduced by many portions. No more rojaring at
the bus stop. The bus drivers cheer. Now we will go home richer, they
rejoice. Soon they will increase the fares and we will have no options.

The Broom will look the other way, for even their own BRT buses already hiked theirs.

The bourgeoisie in
their air-conditioned cars are happy. The sight of poverty, which the
Okada represent, nauseates them. The Broom is really working, they
hail. Being a car owner has suddenly got a whole new meaning. Now their
car bumpers will be safer from scratches. And yes, there is a little
more entertainment for them as they inch along in the traffic. What
better satisfaction could there be for them but the sight of people
trekking in the sun and the rain because the Okada are gone.

The Broom refuses
to see that it has just swept many men into joblessness and many a
family deeper into poverty. It doesn’t want to notice that the able
bodied men who ride the Okada aren’t doing it by choice. It pretends it
doesn’t know the relationship between unemployment and crime. It boasts
of having bought a helicopter for the police. Shoot those nuisances on
sight they order. We don’t need them in our Mega City.

The rest of us are
divided into two camps. Some cheer the Broom, citing the many ills of
the Okada. Others boo the Broom and say it is insensitive. Some point
to Abuja where the Okada system worked, as example to follow. Others
remind them that Abuja is quite different from Lagos in many ways.
Another lot however is just looking, they don’t have an opinion.
They’ve been awed by the other impressive work of the Broom that now
they don’t know how to approach this new development.

In all this no one
cares to talk about the issues that led to the emergence of the Okada
in the first place, or the conditions that led to the birth of graduate
Okada riders. We brush the main issue under the carpet and argue about
trivialities. The real issue of rapid urban expansion without
proportional expansion of utilities and a poorly developed transport
system; the real issues of grave economic imbalance and extreme poverty
in the land, remains un addressed.

The Broom has done it again, but this time I think it has swept a
little too much. It has thrown away the bin along with the dirt. It has
acted like those before it who forgot the welfare of those that gave
them the mandate as soon as they got comfortable in the chairs of
Government House. It has shown us that indeed the difference between
the Broom and the Umbrella is only in the physical structure. In
thought, they are one and the same and the rest of us are just on the
other side.