THEY ARE A MENACE

THE news that the police have arrested some people who used unlicensed motorbikes to steal must really be refreshing, coming just days before Africa’s greatest sports fiesta kicks off at the Ohene Djan Sports Stadium.
While commending the police for carrying out the arrests, we must add that, in our opinion, it has taken the police too long a time to bring these law breakers to book.
Only a newcomer to Accra, Kumasi and the other urban centres may be unaware of the havoc caused by riders of unlicensed motorbikes in those places. Apart from those motorbikes being used as a get-away means of transportation for many armed robbers, their riders also use them to snatch mobile phones, briefcases, ladies’ bags and what have you from unsuspecting pedestrians, particularly at bus stops, traffic intersections, etc.
Since the motorbikes can easily meander through the perennial traffic on some of our main roads and streets, those using them who have the intent to commit crime can easily get away, leaving their victims in the lurch.
To add to the nuisance, riders of unlicensed motorbikes disrupt traffic during festive occasions such as Eid-ul-Fitr and at political rallies. Again, the bikes are used to cause trouble when a funeral procession is taking a dead body to the cemetery for burial.
As if that is not enough, almost all the riders of these unlicensed motorbikes do not wear the statutory safety helmets, thereby putting their own lives in danger.
This, in short, is how menacing motorbikes have become in the country and drastic steps should be taken to eliminate this menace before something catastrophic happens from their use.
Of course, the DAILY GRAPHIC should be the first to acknowledge the fact that motorbikes, if they are used with good intentions, serve very useful purposes. In this period of high fuel prices and serious traffic jams, motorbikes can come in handy. Indeed, we are of the opinion that their use should be encouraged, so that the country’s high fuel import bill could be brought down.
We are, however, concerned about the use of this otherwise utilitarian means of transportation for nefarious activities.
The Akans say, “Nnipa bone foo nti na yeto din”, to wit, everybody is given a name because there are bad people around. In that wise, we suggest to the police to, henceforth, see every rider of an unlicensed motorbike as a criminal suspect and treat him or her as such. That should be the first step in getting rid of the danger posed by these motorbikes.
Moreover, the riders must be compelled to wear the safety helmets, so that in case of any accident, they will survive. We feel that Mother Ghana needs every single Ghanaian to help in nation building so nobody should be allowed to put his or her own life at risk.
The use of motorbikes to display at funerals, sporting and social events must also be curtailed if we want to bring sanity onto our roads, especially during the next three weeks or so when we are hosting the rest of Africa.
The DAILY GRAPHIC is of the considered opinion that in the days immediately before the commencement of the tournament and in the course of it, nothing untoward should be done to wreck all the meticulous preparations that have gone into hosting Ghana 2008.
We call on police patrol teams to keep an eye on users of unlicensed motorbikes right from today, so that their negative activities are not extended onto our visitors from other countries who are here for the tournament. We cannot, as a country, afford to allow a few bad lots to tarnish the hard-won reputation of our country.