A New Onitsha Births After Okada Restrictions – By Obika Chidiebele
Loading ...Leadership, of men and materials, entails having the clear vision and capacity to understand the contending societal issues at stake in one’s immediate environment and mustering the political WILL to take hard decisions and implementing them promptly.
The salutary aim, of course, is to find lasting solutions to persistent socio-economic or political challenges impeding progress  for the common good of the people. In so doing, the leader, acting in concert with the relevant team of technocrats and stakeholders critically analyses all the factors at play and proffers solutions to them.
This should also include the likely impact of decisions on the population before arriving at a conclusion. But when it has to do with the protection of lives and property, which the leader solemnly swore to carry out before the public, his actions could be more drastic and deafening. Indeed, he should be driven by the enduring good than pandering to the wishes of critics, or being swayed by the temporary pains of those who may have benefitted from the anomalies being corrected.
It is in this context that the restriction on the movement of commercial motorcyclists, popularly called, Okada, in the greater Awka and Onitsha cities by Governor Willie Obiano’s administration on July 1st 2018, should be seen. An action which initially was greeted with mixed reactions, has now restored sanity to the once noisy, dirty and poluted cities, especially, the Onitsha Metropolitan city.
The commercial city of Onitsha that hosts the largest retail market in West Africa, formerly characterized by careless avoidable motorcycle accidents and noise pollution, occasioned by reckless riders of these motorcycles, has been sanitized by the ban.
Also, the covers of criminals and petty thieves who masqueraded as commercial motorcyclists in Onitsha, have been blown by the ban. And chased out of the state, hence, reducing the high rate of criminal activities in the city to the barest minimum.
It is now visible, even to the visually impaired, that Onitsha City, under the Willie Obiano led administration, and through the collaboration of ndi Anambra, is now better, safe and secure for Ndi Anambra, and other Nigerians who live in and carry out their every day businesses in the state.
The government of Anambra State, had through her policies returned the lost glory of the state back. Today, investors are trooping in to Anambra to invest in the Nation’s most secured state. With the orderliness that returned as the effect of “okada” ban, surely the state will record more influx of investors.
