By SundiataPOST, Abuja
The Commissioner for Transport in Niger State, Alhaji Abubakar Mohammed, said on Thursday that total ban on commercial motorcycles in Minna, the state capital, would take effect in November.
Mohammed told newsmen in Minna that 408 tricycles had been distributed while another 300 units were on ground awaiting distribution.
He said the ban on commercial motorcycles as means of transport in Minna would take effect after the distribution of the remaining tricycles in November.
Mohammed said the aim was to improve security in the state and to reduce motorcycle accidents to the barest minimum.
He urged the Amalgamated Commercial Motorcycle and Tricycle Riders Association of Niger not to renege on the monthly repayment it entered with the union when they took delivery of the first set of tricycles.
He said the move would enable the state to provide them with more tricycles.
The Chairman of the association, Malam Musa Isiaku, commended the state government for the gesture, and said that the tricycles had reduced rate of accidents and crimes.
Isiaku said with the tricycles, the unregistered members had been reduced and that riders of the tricycles were more organised than the commercial motorcycle operators.
He appealed to government to carry the association along while releasing the next batch of tricycles.
The chairman said that commercial motorcycle operators should not be ban from the roads abruptly until there were sufficient tricycles in Minna.
