Ghana's Okada Wahala

“OKADA” is a house hold

name referring to commercial motors. Long ago it was never dreamt of

that such

a thing could ever happen in Ghana. I guess this is transport

integration where

the trade is gradually widening along the coastal cities of West Africa.

I

don’t know much about Benin and Burkina Faso so I keep my mouth shut on

them.

For Nigeria, I know it is of no news that the country is well known for

the

business as it is showed off in most of their movies. There is another

country

whose ratio of ‘Okada’ to car as a means of transport is almost 15:1.

This is Togo.

My three day visit to Lome the capital was a new world of experience all

together. It is a fast way of traveling and to avoid the scarce traffic

in

Togo, one would have no option than to board on the Okada. Mondays are

days of

money making for the Okada man as a result of most workers seeking the

help of

Okada to make it to work on time. My private Okada man whom I hired for

the

three day long was very sincere and told me a lot of things about their

economy

and politics which I intend to make known in latter articles. Though it

is

quite expensive, I would say it is the best form of transport in Togo. A

7km trip

could cost one about 2000CFA, close to 6GHC. This was the answer to a

question

I asked him about the reasons why they don’t provide their passengers

with a

helmet: “You know, this is a country where we don’t have money. First,

we use

helmets for passengers but some peoples head is not proper. Some people

have

disease on their head and they give it to others. When that happens, the

people

themselves stopped using helmets. That is why you don’t find people

using them.

”. Well, a little experience from Togo for us then. Now, let us move on

to what

is happening in Ghana. The first time I saw the operation of Okada was

in the

latter part of 2008 around the Rawlings Park. They initially were

running from

the said place to Kolebu, James town and its environs. Later

on, their numbers begun to grow from

the initial four that I saw to almost thirty at its present state. Just

two

months ago, the Okada business has just sprung up at the Odorkor Traffic

light

like roses. Its patronage too is very

high and one would need only a cedi to make it to Mallam junction in

just five

minutes at most. What made me add my mouth to this issue is all about

the way

these Okada men use adventurously use the road. One would have no option

to

know whether these men have any knowledge in road safety. That

withstanding,

how many of them have lances to operate? Do they pay VIT or any revenue

to the

government at all? Could you believe that their own created path of

transporting passengers to the Mallam junction is the pedestrians’

pavement? I was shocked to the pants

when I saw that. Of late, street lights on that highway are not working

and

pedestrians would have to be extra careful when walking on the now

perceived

safe grounds; the pavement. I know that

this kind of transport is not accepted in Ghana but to make it worst,

why using

the place meant for people to walk on?

As I am always on the watch, I saw this police officer taking

money from

the master of the Okada station in order to allow them operate. My mouth

was

fully opened in dismay. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Is this

not an enforcer

of the law helping to break the law? Anyway, I think we are about to

lose more

if we allow these guys to use the pavement. I was told by a Kasoa friend

that

those guys are usually arrested when they get to Mallam junction so they

usually dispatch their passengers around the market. The question then

comes.

If these people are arrested at one end and at the other end nothing

happens,

then the outcome is what? Corruption? That aside, it is bad to ply the

busy

streets of Accra without a helmet. With that too, making sure that

passengers

wear helmet would also result in the Togo saga. The end point should

then be

debated.

Atawura Philip

Ghana Institute of

Journalism

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