Motorbike/Robbery Emergency
The headline for this commentary is about the dire situation we find ourselves in as a peace-loving people in the light of unregistered motorbikes being used to rob and spread fear and panic.
The situation has reached a crescendo. Because of the brazenness with which the hoodlums undertake their criminality these days in broad daylight, the Police should be allowed to apply an equally unusual approach in dealing with them.
Of course, the hoodlums cannot overwhelm the Police; all that is needed is the cooperation of the public.
Our garrulous radio station ‘know-alls’ and so-called security experts should allow the law enforcement agents to do their work and avoid dragging policing into the remit of politics. The situation is about fighting crime and the police are up to the task of containing it not so when there is too much interference in their work.
The police should mount an all-out campaign against unregistered ones and there are many on our streets.
There are registered motorbikes engaged in genuine businesses such as parcel deliveries and others. These and private persons who rely on their personal motorbikes to go about their daily chores cannot be part of those being referred to here and the police officers know that.
We may not readily have authentic statistics about persons who have lost monies and endured traumas through motorbike-aided robberies but the number is staggering.
Last Friday saw two of such criminalities in Tema and Sampa Valley in broad daylight. The crap must cease forthwith as we cannot allow criminals do as they wish in a country ruled by law.
While some of these motorbike youth stalk their victims as they leave banks others attack through other means.
There has been an exponential increase in the number of motorbikes in the nation’s capital and sometimes we wonder whether the cost of the bikes is so low that acquiring them is no problem at all to the youth. The fact that some of the bikes are stolen is another factor for the ease with which the young boys acquire them anyway.
The use of motorbikes should be regulated. If we intend to normalize the commercial use of motorbikes the amendment to the law outlawing this should be revisited otherwise the law should be applied.
In the past week or so we have observed a heightened police clampdown on unregistered motorbikes. The problem however, is that the exercise is not consistent. The nine-day wonder approach is not a solution to the bloody nonsense being perpetrated on our streets.
A policy alteration should also be considered in addressing the motorbike menace in the country. The duty on motorbikes should be raised as well as the insurance cost of these gadgets.
This way the ownership would be limited and hence the reduction of the criminality associated with them.
There should be a bipartisan agreement on the need to stop unregistered and uninsured motorbikes from operating on our streets.
Politicians should not be seen to be diverging on the subject because what is at stake is of national security value.