By Isaac Massaquoi
I was in the middle of a journalism-training program in Kenema recently for radio producers from the three districts in the Eastern region under the banner of Eastern Radio when violence erupted in one section of the town. People were running helter-skelter. Parents rushed to take their children out of school. Shops and small businesses were closed down. A very important section of the normally sleepy town of Kenema was under live fire unleashed by the police as bike riders tried to set fire to the Ahmaddiya Secondary School located at the entrance of the town on the main highway from Bo.
For about two hours my work with the young journalists was severely disrupted. Half a dozen of them rushed to the area to report on the incident while others withdrew to the safety of the radio studio on Freedom Mountain. No doubt we were never in danger so far away from the trouble. In fact it was a great place to be as Freedom Mountain offers a fantastic view of one of the most beautifully-laid out towns in all Sierra Leone and particularly the area where the struggle was taking place.
The people in the area coped very well, perhaps the war time experience prepared them for relatively small emergencies like that. I quickly recalled the 6th of January 1999 when Elderd Collins and his people – the fighters and the ideologues behind the RUF launched their “OPERATION NO LIVING THING.” This incident in Kenema was a very scary experience but it wasn’t as severe as January 1999 and it was isolated to just one section of town, lasting almost two hours.
When we finally returned to the training schedule, the journalists reported that members of the Bike Riders Union were attacking the property and pupils of the Ahmaddiya School in revenge for the killing of a bike rider by a pupil. The story was that a bike rider had hit a pupil of the school and disappeared – a kind of hit and run action. By the time the police tried to put the situation under control, hundreds of bike riders descended on the place vowing to avenge the killing of one of their own and clashing with the police.
I am writing this only now because; a pattern is emerging across the country, of bike riders embarking on their own form of justice every time one of them is caught in some kind of confrontation with other people. I have witnessed at least two incidents in Bo. The city was grounded for hours; Freetown has had its own experience too. Police should now be “investigating” how the killing of a bike rider at Goderich in the Freetown peninsular, for which a serving police officer is standing trial, led to the riders attacking and ransacking the Calaba Town police station, stripping it bare.
The last time I wrote about bike riders was when two of them attacked and severely injured my colleague James Tamba Lebbie on Fourah Bay College campus in a failed bid to steal his bag that was full of examination scripts. When I visited him in the morning, he told me the chairman of the bike riders at Model Junction had visited him and promised to help with his medical bills. I really can’t explain how I felt about such effrontery. Instead of helping to arrest the criminals who were known to him, here was this funny fellow talking trash. No doubt James dismissed his rubbish. I was still with James when a police officer brought him a medical form and asked him to return it to them after visiting a doctor. I turned to the police officer and asked, “Have you arrested the thieves?” He looked at me with some foreboding, like a death row inmate in his last few hours on earth – he was hopeless. He said something to the effect that it was almost impossible for the police to catch the criminals.
I have heard very clever, even romantic arguments about how commercial bike riding has changed many lives in a positive way in this country. People have told me of university students, former fighters from this country’s civil war and the large army of restless unemployed young people now living a reasonably good life from the proceeds of bike riding. In fact I once met one of my own former students who graduated with a decent honours degree riding a commercial motor-bike in Bo. The last time I saw the young man was during a visit to one of the radio stations in Bo where he was the news editor. A few months later, a former classmate of his called me to say that the guy had abandoned his job as an editor and gone off to do commercial bike riding. He told me he was very disappointed, even ashamed that his former classmate was an Okada Man. On the day I bumped into the graduate Okada Man, he was at pains to explain the rationale for his decision. Money was the driving force. He told me his job as news editor didn’t pay much and in any case, because business was generally bad for radio stations, his salary was disgracefully irregular and he had a family to feed. “Are you doing well with this bike riding business then?” I asked. He said compared to his previous job, he was fine on the road. I have narrated this story that is so close to home only to demonstrate that I agree entirely with those who hold such views about the positive side of commercial bike-riding.
As people living in major cities in Sierra Leone today, let’s not pretend we are not aware that just below the surface of this glorious bike rider project is some dark secret that we should expose and publicly discuss.
Firstly, a hard-core criminal group has infiltrated commercial bike riding and is inflicting serious pain on the people throughout the country. Secondly, politicians have entered the game and are busy trying to score cheap political points on the back of the bike riders who themselves have noticed this and are therefore manipulating or even blackmailing the system for their own benefit. Thirdly, the number of bike riders continues to grow daily. The last time I checked, the Eastern region alone had just over 4,000 (four thousand)motorbikes registered with the Bike Riders Union. Imagine all the motorbikes operating in the Kambia area and tell me why is it that only thirty-six are registered with the Road Transport Authority. Look at what is happening to Freetown, I am not sure the SLRTA has any idea how many bikes are operating in the city. Freetown is very surprised, metaphorically at least, about the way commercial bike riding has taken hold of its narrow winding roads with all the problems that come with that.
I want Sarah Bendu, the head of the SLRTA, to call my bluff and confirm that all motorbikes operating in Sierra Leone are registered with her organisation or she can simply publish the figures of those fully registered with her Authority. I would like to see the figures. That’s a simple demand from an ordinary citizen and we don’t need an access to information application for that.
The effort to properly organize commercial bike-riding starts with correct registration details of all bikes. We can then go on to talk about putting them in zones under a well defined, recognized and democratically elected Bike Riders’ Union with specific mandates and reporting methods. If we had this in place, by now the association in charge of Model Junction would have easily produced those criminals who attacked my colleague, James.
There are also questions about whether the riders are put through the necessary tests before they get their licenses. Again I make bold to say that not even up to half the riders in this country are qualified and have the correct papers. They are registered with their unions but not with the SLRTA. For us the latter registration is the most important. If our health facilities had good records, the nation would be amazed by the number of deaths and injuries caused by commercial motorbikes since they became a key part of our national transportation system.
I mentioned earlier that politicians have joined in, trying to catch as many bike rider votes as they can in November and like for every other thing including street trading and garbage collection, our politicians have simply given in to blackmail, leaving the rest of us at the mercy of bike riders and other clientele groups.
When the SLRTA and the police recently instituted measure to try and bring some sanity into this area, politicians in high places gave instructions and the whole project has come to an abrupt halt. The most common-sense ideas – such as not sending text messages or speaking on mobile phones while driving – have been put on hold by that big politician who chairs a weekly meeting on those issues.
I have nothing against aggressive commercial bike riders or politicians scraping every corner for votes. That’s their nature. What we cannot allow is for these bike riders to operate above the law. Whether our politicians want to say this or not, the fact is commercial bike-riding is a national security issue and must be treated with all the seriousness it deserves. Bike riders are multiplying by the day. So does the nefarious activity of some of them. They are organizing themselves into powerful unions; they make a lot of money and have tested the power of our law enforcement institutions with “positive” results on their side. How else can we explain the fact that the boys were audacious enough to attack a police station – the most powerful symbol of governmental authority – and get away with only an extremely weak State House press release? Is anyone of them on trial now for that incident?
I end with comments already made in this piece. A good many of the boys on motorbike are perfectly normal guys trying to eke out a genuine living on the streets in the face of crippling unemployment and hopelessness. But a powerful criminal group has found a place in the heart of the industry and the rest of society is feeling the consequences of this capture of an otherwise good initiative.
No matter what Bockarie Lewis Kamara does now at the Road Transport Corporation to evolve an effective road transport system, and he is not doing badly so far, motorbikes will continue to be a part of our transport system and if they continue to be so unregulated, criminal, rude and violent, I have no idea where we are headed.
