When Gallant Police Restored Order At Troubled Lagos Estate
SOMETHING was clearly not right at one
of Lagos State’s busy thoroughfares.
Words filtered into the newsroom that a
riot had broken out between commercial
motorcyclists (Okada) and policemen.
“All hell has broken loose! A policeman
has been killed! An Armoured Personnel
Carrier (APC) has been burnt! Be careful
if you have to pass through the place! It
is very serious o!”
All but one of the above proved to be
true in perhaps the worst of fracases to
have happened at the Ajao Estate/Canoe
intersection: no policemen died as
reported. One policeman, however,
asked a disturbing question after the
dust had settled; it was a pregnant
interrogation.
The area was ‘soaked’ with armed
policemen. They had stormed the place
in about a dozen vehicles. The
atmosphere was tense. Utmost caution
was finest wisdom. Hands held high in
the air, the reporter walked to retrieve
his vehicle, parked there earlier during
the day. In the darkness, an armed
police officer drew near.
“Identify yourself!” he barked.
“I am a journalist. I want to pick my car,
there (pointing).
“Do you speak Hausa?”
“Yes, I do. But I am not Hausa; I am
Yoruba.”
Along came another policeman. They
pondered the bag-carrying, shoe-
wearing, newspaper-clutching reporter.
Satisfied, perhaps, that he didn’t look
exactly like what they were watching for,
they gave the pass. But the scream and
mercy pleas of another man who passed
the spot barely seven seconds after
showed not everyone went lucky.
To ask what ‘speaking Hausa’ has to do
with a riot, a burnt police APC, and tens
of trigger-anxious officers on a scary
Lagos night is to understand ‘Operation
Ba Bahaushe’ – the police crackdown on
activities of notoriously lawless Okada
riders; a clear-out that has restored
sanity to Ajao Estate. But how did the
madness sink its fangs into what used to
be a quiet residential/ industrial layout?
And where had the police been all the
while when the motorcyclists unleashed
brazen chaos on other road users and
dared them to go to hell?
Motorists who have had the misfortune
of driving through the Ajao Estate/Canoe
intersection, especially during peak
periods, mouth a similar story:
frustrating standstill or slow-down
caused by nothing else but hundreds of
motorcyclists picking passengers,
dropping them off, and turning around
for another trip – right in the middle of
the road! They park in their dozens on a
quarter of the road awaiting prospective
customers, amid honking, shouting,
revving. Menace is an understatement.
Following a war-like clash early this year
between factions in the lucrative
transport hub, the police had deployed
the APC to the intersection. The blue
carrier served as quarters for the
officers; in its spacious ‘belly’ they ate,
slept and did ‘bookkeeping’. For months,
the huge, towering but stationary vehicle
looked down on the lawless intersection
– a metallic symbol of motionless,
powerless and complicit policing.
Then came an Alausa-backed, Okada-
seizing, rider-incarcerating taskforce on
the last day of October that swooped
down on the riders, packing man and
machine. There was no doubt, this task
force was unprepared (at least that day)
to do ‘deals’ with any bike man; deals
that had long perpetrated an annoying
menace. Taut emotions snapped. The
furious motorcyclists turned against the
‘friends’ that had, all the while, turned a
blind eye to their excesses, and
destroyed the APC. A policeman was also
reportedly beaten badly.
Past investigations by The Guardian into
the disorderliness at Ajao Estate had
revealed a profiteering racket where
many motorcyclists operated under
protective umbrella of the police.
Besides, it is commonplace knowledge
that law enforcers make massive returns
from transport operators in the axis,
receiving in broad daylight mandatory
‘kola-nuts’ in exchange for permission to
drive one-way. It goes without saying
that until the recent crisis, Ajao Estate
was one of the most rewarding posts for
unscrupulous officers.
When The Guardian visited the place
10am Wednesday, there was no police
presence. There was no commercial
motorcyclist either. The ripples of
‘Operation Ba Bahaushe’ were still
active. But as the reporter made to leave
the area, three men beckoned, offering
to “carry you anywhere”. Their path led
through a street to a spot perfectly
hidden behind a wall. Here was the new
Okada theatre.
“You want the police to shoot me,” said
one motorcyclist, when he was asked
why he wasn’t working in his former
zone. From this point, they pick
passengers to their destinations and also
drop them.
The Okada riders who once ruled the
Ajao Estate/Canoe intersection actually
come from every sector of the Nigerian
society. There was, however, one class
that stood out in intimidating numerical
strength. And although there are reports
that some members of this class are from
the Republic of Niger and Chad, The
Guardian reliably gathers that many are
persons displaced by the Boko Haram
insurgency. These, Chadian, Nigeriens
and all, have one thing in common: they
share the Hausa dialect. And a Hausa
man is a Bahaushe, just like one would
call a British man a Briton.
With Operation Ba (No) Bahaushe, the
police might have restored sanity to a
once-troubled Lagos Estate, sweeping
away everything Okada, and depriving
some commuters of their favourite and
quicker means of transportation. But a
question still remains: where were the
police during those chaotic days when
Okada riders haunted the area?
Not a motorcyclist in sight… The new
look of Ajao Estate/Canoe Bridge
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