The Nature of Okada

Okay in the last two days I have learned something about okada. As I have mentioned before okada are motorcycle taxis. They move around Lagos like swarms of bees. If you run afoul of an okada driver you had best beware, where you see one, there are five others right around the corner just out of sight. They weave through traffic ignoring both law and common sense. They are also the quickest way to get around if there is traffic.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to ride not one, but three different okada, and I learned some interesting things in the process. Until yesterday I viewed okada just like we would view a taxi in the USA or in the UK. You flag one down you tell them where you are going and you hop on and go. Well yesterday I learned a bit more about how the okada system works. First off, and yes this one is obvious, okada do not have a meter. When you flag down an okada you tell them where you want to go to (there are some guidelines here which I will cover shortly) and they tell you their price. Rule number 1: Never agree to their first price, rule number 2: be prepared to walk away and head toward another okada when they will not budge from their price. Now the guidelines on location: certain okada operate in certain areas, again referencing the bee analogy from above, okada are territorial. There are actual companies that employ okada, and some companies only operate in certain areas. If you don’t know the boundaries of the particular okada it can be difficult to know where to catch one for the next leg of your journey. This is the main reason that I rode three different okada yesterday. My driver had dropped me at the church for an activity and we were going to be traveling to a “motherless baby’s home” for our activity. I had expected more youth to show up, but it ended up being just one of the young women leaders and I left at the church. The road to the church was in really bad shape so we did not want to walk down to the bus through shin deep water. We flagged down two okada and each rode one down to the end of the road, though the shin deep water of course, I actually heard water sizzle on the exhaust pipe a couple times. It cost us 50 Naira each (39 cents) for the ride down to the main road. Here we began the negotiations for the long distance portion of our journey. We would share one okada for this leg of the trip (yes that means three adults on one 125cc motorcycle, which happens all the time here. The most I have seen is 5 people total including children on one okada, if I am lucky I will catch this on film at some point. ) This portion of the trip cost us 400 Naira (about $3.13) and I have to say it was an interesting trip riding as the third person, definitely a new experience for me. Once we got to the first Lekki roundabout we found two more okada to finish off our journey, it cost 70 Naira (55 cents) each for these.

Overall it was a very interesting trip, but most of all it made me realize something……I MISS MY MOTORCYCLE!!!!!!