From CHUKS ONUOHA, Umuahia, Nigeria

Chizurum Enyinnaya alias Ozidi, 35, is a renowned motorcycle mechanic in Umuahia. In the beginning, he specialized in the repairs of Vespa.
Unlike his colleagues in the profession who abandoned their mechanic workshops to embrace commercial motorcycling at the advent of Okada riding, Enyinnaya remained in his Vespa automobile repairs even when his fortunes from the business started to dwindle.

However, the hardship posed by the advent of motor bikes on to his business did not make him to lose fate in the mechanic trade; rather he kept on praying to God for it to be well again someday.
And last year God answered his prayers as the Abia State government banned the use of motorcycles for commercial purposes in the cities of the state as a result of incessant kidnapping and armed robbery cases associated with Okada riders.

The ban of Okada in Abia enthroned the use of the tricycle popularly known as Keke NAPEP and today Keke NAPEP has rekindled the hope of Enyinnaya whose workshop has started to bubble again as the tricycle operators now fall over themselves to get his services.
Therefore, Enyinnaya has given a thumb up for the Abia State governor, Chief Theodore Orji for the ban of Okada in the state.

The ban, he said, has favoured him more than any other businessman in the commercial motorcycling business.

Hear him: “I learnt how to repair Vespa along Bende Road in 1994. By then, people were using it for commercial. Suddenly, people started raising rumours that it falls easily and that whenever it falls, it cuts people’s legs. It was from there that my problem started as they resorted to the use of Okada, that is, the two-legged machine.
“This brought to the declining of my customers as almost every person I was doing this work with had left it for something better.

“When other mechanics abandoned the repairs of Vespa and Scooter due to lack of customers and moved over to Okada, I refused to quit. Inside me I had that feeling that something would happen that would change my destiny for good. At a point, I was the only person on the trade. I thank God that I did not follow others.

“When you come here in the morning, many of them will line up waiting for me to do one thing or the other. You can see how the ban in Okada has made me a king in my own field. If not for this ban, do you think that all these people will talk to me?
“Their engines are still new and they only come for change of oil, plug, cleaning of carbons and other minor repairs. By the time the engines start wearing, we will start the real engineering work.

“I refused to quit when others did because I was still making my daily bread from it and kept praying to God to bless the work of my hand since I cannot go and learn any other handwork now.

“I never believed that God would do it like this. At a point, I was the major repairer of Vespa in the whole of Umuahia and people were making mockery of me. But “God has placed me in the mainstream of business to the extent that I am being sought for from every angle.

“And this is just the beginning. What we are doing for them now is just servicing, they are still very new. It will get to the point of overhauling the engines and by then, we will be in the real soup. You can see how God has lifted me up out of nothing. You cannot compare the time of Okada and now. We are doing better now and we thank God for everything. We now have apprentices who want to learn the trade.”
Keke NAPEP and Vespa. Also speaking to Daily Sun, a tricycle operator, Hon Williams Otunwa, who is an executive member of Keke-NAPEP Operators Welfare Association (KNOWA) said that they procured their machine through a community bank in Umuahia South.

“Decency Bank advertised that we should apply and we did and made a deposit of N100,000 and they released them to us for 421, 650 to be paid within one year, with two sureties to sign for one. We met all these conditions and the tricycles were given to us.

“I took delivery of this one in September last year and we have been doing our best to ensure prompt payment to the bank. But the activities of touts and some government officials are not helping us at all.
“We belong to the above association and we don’t pay this daily ticket as members of the association because we have paid some dues from the beginning. But as an operator, we pay about N150 daily to different people who claim to be arms of government.

“In terms of safety, it is better than Okada. Last Christmas, there was no complaint of accident with it. If you go to the Okada ward at FMC, it is now empty. People are now happy unlike in the Okada era.
Police should also know that we are riding this on hire purchase basis. They shouldn’t be harassing us on the road because we don’t want to lose it to the banks for not meeting up with the payment.