When you get to Ajao Estate part of Isolo Oshodi area of Lagos State, the observant eye would notice that all the commercial motorcycles popularly called Okadas, do not have the official Nigerian registration plates on them.
This was what triggered my curious mind and led me to investigate why this is so. One morning I boarded a bike going from Canoe to 7/8 bus stop. While on the bike, I discovered that all the bikes instead of having plate numbers, have plate colours! Each colour I was told belongs to a particular money collecting team representing a top ranking police officer in the area. The Bike Men who are mostly Hausas pay N1,200 weekly to the collecting team their bike colour falls into.
One Okada man who pleaded anonymous said if you stubbornly go and register your bike officially, the policemen would keep frustrating you until you change to the colours.
According to them , the Coloured plates replaced the former plates which was marked with the initials of the officer who gets the money. It was changed when news of the fraud got the “Ogas” .
Now this means that the Lagos State government does not have the true figure of how many bikes are doing business in Lagos State because Police Officers have cornered the ones in Ajao Estate and converted them to their market.
See photos of the bikes in Ajao Estate:
Source: chikeroonline.com