EFFECTS OF BANNING OF COMMERCIAL MOTORCYCLES ON SECURITY AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT: A STUDY OF MINNA METROPOLIS

Abstract

Serial killings of security officials particularly, police men persist in Niger State, North Central Nigeria, when the issue of Boko Haram and its associated violent activities were at their peak in the Nigeria, sometimes toward the end of year 2013, became an issues of great concern. This incident triggered a ban on the use of motorcycles as commercial means of transport in the state. As authorities in the state believed the perpetrators of those killings were using motor cycles to escape from crime scenes. But soon as the ban took effect in January, 2014, security and safety concerns raised earlier by the Niger State officials to rationalise the ban, immediately led to an increased in poverty, youth restiveness and crime rates. This paper examines these development challenges and their security implications. Consequently, in depth interviews were conducted with motorcycle (Kabu Kabu) operators, medical personnel and police officials and analysed with simple percentage and verbatim methods. The result shows that the purported victory the ban had given the Niger State authorities was short lived and turned pyrrhic, as it sparked- off resentments, discontent and restiveness among youths in the state capital. This paper therefore suggests a holistic youth empowerment policy which will engage the teeming unemployed youths in the state. Such effort will not only checkmate the growing youth discontent, it will also arrest upsurge of violent crimes that may go along with it.