Menace May Return In Weeks

IT has often been said that the Nigerian Police, when they choose to work, do so with gusto and achieve impressive results. On Tuesday, they stormed the notorious Ladipo International Spare Parts Market in Mushin. After they had left, many Lagosians who thought Governor Akinwunmi Ambode was clueless (Olorun ma je) or spineless had a rethink. The man unleashed the blue-black-uniformed boys. The blue-black-uniformed boys also allowed themselves to be unleashed. The rest – until the recalcitrant traders return – is history.

Ordinary road users (the non-Ladipoed ones) who plied the Charity/Toyota service lane last week may have found it hard to believe their eyes. One of the city’s most brazen icons of impunity had vanished; the lane, which had been clogged with parked vehicles, was free! Motorists who have had the misfortune of getting trapped on the stretch would recall times when the less than two-minute lap became a nerve-wracking, snail-ish 45-minute drive.

Ladipo Market is a fine example of the ‘can do’ spirit of some Nigerians: a disposition that not only struggles to move past the confines of economic hardship but sometimes thinks it actually ‘can do anything’ for profit. And so, from what used to be their inner premises of operations, the spirits danced to the perimeter, hard beside the service lane; leapt across the lane to the other side of the road; jumped FERMA’s proudly constructed drainage; and sat on the edge of the Oshodi-Isolo Expressway, eyeing perhaps the entire highway.

It was one sacrilegious act he was unwilling to permit: Pastor Akinwunmi Ambode reached for the holy cane, ‘binded’ the errant spirits, ‘casted’ them into the darkness of a Black (or was it green) Maria, and towed the parked vehicles to faraway.

“The chairman of the task force, Mr. Olubukola Abe, was here himself to warn the traders to desist from causing obstruction to free flow of traffic. He even gave them the instruction to remove the unused vehicles that had constituted nuisance to this area, because government does not believe people should disturb the peace of others in the course of doing their business. Since they have failed to comply with the instructions and also disdained the notices served on them, we are here today to remove the vehicles,” one member of the task force told The Guardian on Tuesday.

But how did the traders manage to breed such indiscipline? And where had the police (and all other law enforcers) been all the while? These are questions Governor Ambode may need to find answers to, if the menace is not expected to return even as soon as two weeks.

Ladipo International Auto Spare Parts Market is any law officer’s delight; there are no security concerns, as one may have in Madagali or Gwoza, places where Boko Haram militants have sown fear. Besides, the rewards of policing Ladipo are good and salary augmenting.

Without qualms about prying eyes, the police in Ladipo openly collect money from drivers of all trucks that visit the market. Besides, the uniformed men are known to rake in a handsome profit everyday, as they grant ‘permission’ to motorists to park indiscriminately on the service lane and the expressway. Takings, per vehicle, often range between N200 and N1000.

Lagos State under former Governor Babatunde Fashola had unsuccessfully tried to curb the excesses of the traders by fencing them in, and even shutting down the market on a few occasions. But the traders have always returned more headstrong than ever, prompting calls by some distraught residents of the state for a relocation of the market.

The traffic obstruction that prompted task force boss, Mr. Olubukola Abe, and his men to storm the area has disappeared. Ambode is working!

But not everyone is happy.