SOCIOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION OF CHALLENGES AND COPING STRATEGIES OF COMMERCIAL MOTORCYCLE RIDERS (OKADA) IN IBADAN, SOUTHWEST, NIGERIA

Abstract

The growing popularity of use of: commercial motorcycle by the commuters as means of transportation in most urban centres in Nigeria and problems associated with it has resulted into public resentment and government action against the okada riders. Consequently, okada riders have devised various strategies to survive. This issues surrounding this has attracted little or empirical sociological investigation. The research design for the study was cross-sectional survey and descriptive. Qualitative and qualitative data were collected from a sample size of 214 respondents made up of okada riders, commuters, law enforcement officer and okada union leaders selected through simple random and purposive sampling techniques in four locations in Ibadan. Results showed that okada riders varied in their sociodemographic characteristics such as age, income, religion, ethnic affiliation and so on. Most
okada riders were motivated into the occupation due to unemployment, poverty and infrastructural constraints. Challenges the riders faced ranged from government ban, indiscriminate arrest and harassment by law enforcement officer, negative public perception to health challenges, The riders had devised vary degree of strategies to cope with the challenges. Using structural functionalism and rational choice theory, this paper argues that though the okada riders perform some indispensable functions in society due to the collapse of the public transportation system, however, as rational beings, they were motivated into the occupation due to unemployment and poverty in the system. The study recommended that to curtail the menace of okada riders government should go beyond banning them but should address social conditions and situations that threw up and sustained okada riding in major urban centres in Nigeria.