Delta State Commissioner for Transport, Mr. Benson Igbakpa, has said there was no going back on the ban on commercial motorcycles, popularly known as Okada, as the ban takes effect today.

He made it clear that the restriction would begin today in Warri, Asaba and Effurun, warning that the ban did not exclude private motorcycle users.

He said: “Anybody who may claim to be using his or her motorcycle for private purposes or haulage should construct a carriage at the back signifying that it is not a passenger motorcycle.

“With the transport arrangements already on ground, we can move as much as 21,000 passengers at a time. So there is no going back on the November 1 take off date for the restriction order because the state governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, has been magnanimous enough.”

Governor Uduaghan had extended the ban by one month to enable a better take off of the system.

Already, the presence of tricycles on the streets of Asaba has become prominent in the last couple of days.

While some passengers that usually patronized Okada told our reporter that they were not comfortable with the ban as the tricycles would not be able to go into rough terrains, others heaved a sigh of relief over the ban.

Commissioning 1,250 tricycles to be used in place of motorcycles, the governor had warned politicians not to interfere with the distribution of the tricycles as it was exclusively reserved for commercial motorcycle operators.

The governor, who subsidized the cost of the tricycles up to 70 per cent, from N400,000 to N150,000, warned operators of the tricycles to restrict themselves to routes approved for them.

He noted that the introduction of the tricycles was to replace and gradually phase out commercial motorcycles as part of measures to ensure safety in the transport sector and promote security in the state.

– Vanguard