Commercial motorcyclists popularly known as Okada in Misau local government of Bauchi State have decried decline in patronage as many runs at loss some days.
Some of the motorcyclists who spoke to WikkiTimes lamented that their daily earnings keep declining as many people prefer to trek than affording the increased fare per drop.
This is coming as Nigerians continue to bear the impact of the rising cost of fuel after the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL) increased fuel price to 897 at its retail filling stations.
Danladi Sale, who is into Okada riding for a decade said he hardly makes N2000 a day even when he is ready to work from morning to night operations. He added that large part of his little earning goes to fueling the bike.
Sale, who used to run errands for some households said most of his customers now resort to trekking or sending their children to market instead of patronizing his services.
“Before this time, I have to turn down some calls from some of my customers whom I ran errand every day, but now that the fuel price has increased and we raised our fares, they hardly call. I know of my customer who now resorted to trekking to get what he wants from market than sending me”, said Sale.
According to him, due to continued low patronage, he has to take compulsory shifting days to attend to his farm, hoping that during harvest time he will have something to feed his family.
“I have to rotate the days, if am on the road today, tomorrow I will be in my farm, now that am talking to you, I just return from the farm. I can’t be spending money buying fuel and at the end counting losses. Yesterday I didn’t even make N2000, so how do you expect one to survive in this” asked Sale.
Just like Sale, Badamasi Amadu said the business keeps declining day by day as people no longer patronize their services due to the increase in the fares per drop. He said that they have no alternative than to increase their fees in order to survive the current fuel price hike.
Amadu said before the recent increase in fuel price, he said they used to charge N100 per short distance but have to increase to N150 to reflect the recent fuel increase.
“The litre prices vary from one filing station to another, the range is from N1050 to N1,150, so you can see we have to increase our fare charges so that we can align with the trend, the situation is beyond our control”, he explained.
Several Okada riders interviewed by WikkiTimes lamented that the low patronage is affecting their daily lives as many of them depend on the business to cater for their daily needs, with many looking for another alternate means of survival.
“I have been in this occupation since I finished secondary school, but today I hardly feed my family two square meals, to make a living in Okada today is not possible. I know of people who have left the town and wander around to make living elsewhere”, said Kawu Mamuda, a father of seven.
Similarly, checks by WikkiTimes showed that there is low presence of Okada in the town, as a passenger has to wait for a while to access a motorcycle, unlike in the past when they freely move in town looking for passengers.
“I have stayed here for almost thirty minutes waiting for Okada but couldn’t get it, they hardly move around now, most of them complained that they end of emptying their tank without carrying any passenger”, said stranded passenger who identified his name as Aliyu Baba.
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