Port Harcourt — The Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) wants you and I to use bicycles to get around as it promotes this non-motorised means of transport as a greener, faster and budget-friendlier alternative. Speaking on World Bicycle Day on June 3, officials of the commission around the country made vigorous appeals to convince us to hop on bikes and ditch our cars. As far back as December 2014, the FRSC made similar noises during the then National Bicycle Week. It claimed that if you rode a bicycle for 30 minutes every week you had the chance of living 10 years longer. And if you will also fall sick 25 per cent less than your sedentary companion. This is clever on the part of the FRSC. They’ve simply appropriated the touted benefits of physical exercise to bicycle riding. The FRSC has returned to the same theme on World Bicycle Day, and officials of the Commission were seen mingling with a few bicycle riders to stress that they mean business.
I like bicycles! Riding them could be fun. As a child, my pleas for a bicycle did not fly because my parents were toiling for my school fees and such fantasy was a needless distraction. I turned to my playmates for help, but they behaved like the typical Nigerian politician. They assured me of long rides if I behaved well but the nearest I came to was to be allowed to touch and sit briefly on the bicycles. So I disliked my guys and transferred the disdain to the object of my disappointment! But, today, I still like bicycles, or to be truthful, I like the idea that we could save the earth, avoid fuel costs and live longer if we would ride them. The World Health Organisation agrees; “The bicycle is a simple, affordable, clean and environmentally fit sustainable means of transportation.”
Bicycles are already popular in Europe and Asia. It is estimated that there are more than 2 billion of them around the world, and this figure could go up to 5 billion by 2050. The Chinese, Indians and Europeans get around a lot on bicycles. In fact, the Danish capital, Copenhagen, is considered the “City of Cyclists,” where more people use that means of transport than vehicles. The story in Africa is less pleasant. Bicycle use in the continent of nearly 1.4 billion people is largely confined to rural areas where people take them to farms, schools and hospitals where roads are difficult. The story is vastly different in Nigeria and this is where the FRSC has become vociferous in its campaigns. Apart from limited use in safe rural areas, bicycles are totems of elitism in cities. Go out on a typical Sunday morning in a Nigerian city and you will see some well-fed and rich-looking dudes dressed to kill in Tour de France gear riding leisurely on designer bicycles and cars serenading them through highways. Obviously, the FRSC wants more than this, but like my experience with my selfish playmates (I mean it, I’ve forgiven them!) it will be disappointed. I know why.
For all its benefits, a bicycle rider is exposed to more risks than someone in a vehicle. For example, in Britain, there were 100 cyclist deaths annually between 2011 and 2019 with the figure going up to 140 in 2020. Statistics show that 79% of bicycle accidents occurred in urban centres compared to 21% in rural areas, which should not be surprising when you consider what the serious cyclist (not the Sunday Sunday rider) contends with in cities. We do not have a safety culture in Nigeria. We do not have bicycle tracts in Nigeria. No cyclist enjoys right of way in our traffic jungle. In Denmark, some 7000 kilometres of tracks is reserved exclusively for use by bicycles. Here, we don’t have roads for vehicles not to talk of bicycles. The promises of longevity pale painfully in comparison to the potential bruising encounters on Nigerian roads. And then we will have traffic policemen checking for bicycle particulars!
I recall a prominent politician from Ohafia in Abia State, Chief Ojo Maduekwe, who sadly passed in 2016. At various times, he was Minister of Culture and Tourism, Foreign Affairs and Transport. During his tenure as Minister of Transport (2000 – 2003,) we watched on prime time television as the erudite lawyer dumped his official car and cycled to work. He caught our attention and fired our zeal as he espoused the ideals of this mode of transportation, urging Nigerians to emulate his bicycle ways. One day, the Honourable Minister was pushed into a ditch by a bus as he was cycling to work. Thankfully, he lived to tell the story, but the bicycle campaign remained in the ditch.
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