LASG TO SEIZE VEHICLES PARKED ON SIDEWALK

The Lagos State Government is set to put an end to indiscriminate parking of vehicles on sidewalks.

Governor Babatunde Fashola on Sunday said there was a need to ensure sanity in people’s attitude to driving and road usage.

He said the Ministry of Physical Planning and other relevant agencies had been instructed to begin aggressive sanitisation of the state roads by removing vehicles causing obstruction to free vehicular movement.

The governor, who was fielding questions from Lagosians during the celebration of his 2,000 days in office said, “I have instructed the Ministry of Physical Planning and other ministries concerned to go out and remove vehicles from sidewalks.

“If you cannot contain your vehicles inside your premises, we will come and take them away.”

The governor also urged traders in the state to desist from trading on the sidewalks, saying it prevents people living with disabilities from having unhindered space to use.

Meanwhile, former Lagos State Commissioner for Public Transportation, Dr. Segun Ogundimu, has asked Fashola to stop pursuing commercial motorcyclists, popularly called okada riders but face real issues in the state.

Ogundimu, at a press conference in Lagos on Sunday, said, “The traffic law as it relates to the okada operators should not make you lose sight of the necessity to protect the travelling public.

“You must do something about real issues in the state rather than pursue okada riders all over the place.”

He said the force with which the restriction of okadas on some routes was being enforced was like “killing an ant with a sledge hammer”.

Ogundimu said during his era as commissioner, the challenges of okada riders were not different from what obtained currently.

He said a very sizeable number of operators were unemployed school leavers, some of whom are graduates, were non-indigenes who had noticed the yawning gap in the state’s supply side of public transportation.

Therefore, the operators, he said, had taken up the gauntlet to tackle the challenge created by the inadequate support for the travelling public.

He said with the restriction and strict enforcement, the increasing tendencies of operators to be hired by negative groups to perpetrate nefarious activities to people of questionable characters were high.

Ogundimu said okada remained the only viable and swift means of affordable public transportation in Lagos today.