Lack of insurance for Okada contributes to poverty increase

Several Nigerians have sustained permanent injuries as a result of Okada accident which has come to be a means of transportation for the low, the mighty and the powerful in most metropolitan cities in Nigeria.

In Lagos, Okada has become indispensable to almost all as a result of the traffic gridlock in the cities. In a bid to get to their destinations, many have taken okada ride only to fall victim of okada accident.

Many have had their legs amputated while several others are receiving treatment at the orthopaedic hospital. Several others are equally being treated traditionally. In all of these, most of the okadas are neither insured nor their passengers.

Due to the fact that commercial motorcycle (popularly called Okada) accidents have become a regular occurrence on Nigerian roads, over 10,000 okada riders and their passengers become physically disabled annually due to complications resulting from such accidents while over 2,000 lose their lives.

Investigations carried out by Vanguard showed that the high rate of injury and death is as a result of the reckless driving of these okada operators coupled with their outright refusal to embrace insurance as a form of protection against accidents.

Unfortunately, both the okada riders and their passengers are left to their own fate because there is no law compelling them to take up insurance, in contrast to the norm where all motor vehicles that ply Nigerian roads must be insured.

According to the Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC, a total of 17,464 victims were rescued from road crash scenes in 2011 on Nigerian roads while over 3,364 deaths were recorded. A significant portion of this number is okada accident victims.

Insurance, as provided by underwriting companies, is meant to take an insured victim who suffers injury as a result of accident back to the position he was before the accident occurred. Also in the case of damage to the vehicle, the insurance company is expected to replace or repair as the case may be. All these are subject to the type of cover which the insured took.

However, investigations by Vanguard revealed that a couple of insurance companies that have tried to establish insurance schemes for okada riders got their fingers burnt as okada operators don?t understand the workings of insurance, and even where they do, they just refuse to buy into it.

Unfortunately, when okada operators who refuse to embrace insurance and are the bread winners of their families get accidented, it increases the poverty rate in the country because they become incapable of further providing for their families.

According to the Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps, Osita Chidoka, the effects of these deaths or injuries are displacements in families as well as increase in number of orphans and street children especially if bread winners are involved.

Although the Federal Government has said that reducing unemployment and enhancing economic productivity are its top priorities, stakeholders are of the opinion that the Federal Government must drastically reduce the number of deaths and injuries suffered on Nigerian roads if the desired growth in the economy is to be achieved.

*Some commercial motorcyclists during operation

Ironically, as Nigerians are increasingly losing their jobs as a result of the economic downturn, more people are going into the okada business and the cycle goes on and on.

Mr. Simon Ebute was an okada rider before he got involved in an accident. His waist was dislocated while he suffered a bone fracture on his right leg. Before the accident, he was the sole provider for the family as his wife was a full-time housewife.

After the accident, his wife was forced to go seeking for help in their church. However, it was never the same again because the bread winner of the family was not able to provide for them. When asked if he knew of insurance, Ebute said that he has been hearing about it but that he does not understand how it works.

Salimotu Ibrahim, a nine- year-old girl used to hawk tomatoes and pepper for her mother each day after school. She was hawking on the 6th of June when an okada ran into her. The okada man escaped with his bike while Ibrahim broke her left leg and was rushed to a native herbal home. Ibrahim?s mother was forced to stop her business to be with her daughter at the herbal home. Being a petty trader, Ibrahim?s mother became dependent on families and friends to assist in paying? her daughter?s medical bill.

Another victim, Lara Jimoh, a trader was skeptical about the traffic gridlock on her way home after the day?s work on June 20th and decided to pick a bike to get home early and attend to her children. On the way, there was a collision with a bigger vehicle and the okada rider died on the spot. Jimoh woke up later in hospital with her right leg broken in two places. ?Please help me tell people that okada is not good oh,? she yelled when Vanguard paid her a visit in the hospital.

Unfortunately, these cases are made worse when these victims become impoverished after suffering these accidents because there was no insurance cover to take care of them.

The increasing rate of poverty
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, Nigeria?s poverty rate stood at 69 per cent in 2010, while 93.9 per cent of Nigerians considered themselves to be poor in 2010 against 75.5 per cent recorded in 2004.

Reports by the NBS also showed that the total number of unemployed Nigerians rose from more than 12 million in 2010 to over 14 million in 2011, with the figure increasing by 1.8 million between December 2010 and June 2011.

Unemployment is highest among people aged between 15 and 24, and 25 and 44 years. The NBS data also showed that over 22 million of the active population are either unwilling or unable to work or are working for less than 40 hours per week on the average.

Experts are of the opinion that 49 per cent of the unemployed reside in the urban area and 39.7 per cent of the unemployed are in the rural areas coupled with the fact that some states are more affected than other states and what this means is that there is a disconnect between the economic growth achieved in the country in the last five years making this an economic issue which could grow to become a social issue.

The way forward
The escalating poverty level in the country where people who need insurance the most cannot afford it, according to insurance operators, is hampering the growth of the insurance sector and affecting a greater percentage of the population.

Accordingly, the operators are of the opinion that if the economy should continue in the snail-like pace at which it is going presently, the target of the government in achieving its vision 20 20:20 will be a mirage.

President of the Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria, CIIN, Mr. Oluwole Adetimehin said that when, the level of disposable income is nothing to write home about, there won?t be increased demand for insurance products from the public.

Adetimehin said: ?So if the industries rather than increasing in number or expanding by the day are shrinking and laying off people, how do you expect the insurance sector to grow?, when the level of disposable income is nothing to write home about, where do you expect to find the demand for insurance products? It is high time the government began to address all these fundamentals with all the seriousness it deserves if anything like the vision 20:2020 will be achieved or crystallised.?

For Adetimehin, the government have to address basic fundamental issues affecting the environment in its entirety because it will be difficult for any sector of the national economy to experience any growth when the basic infrastructure is not receiving due attention year in and year out.

However for Managing Director of FBN Life Assurance Plc, Mr. Val Ojumah, the abuse of trust by insurers resulted in the poor public perception which is adversely affecting the sector.

Ojumah said: ?When insurance started in this country, it was based on one keyword, ?trust? but that trust was abused. In the early days,? insurance agents with motorcycles were going all over the place marketing insurance, people parted with a lot of money.

But did the early companies pay claims as they promised? The answer is no. Not a few agents went away with the money they collected and what happened? Many of those insurance companies went down. Consequently, that created a snowball and a big problem for the insurance industry. People will not forget in a hurry what happened in the past.?

Ojumah also said that insurance is still alien to Nigerians while the practitioners have not been innovative enough in creating new products.

He said: ?In our traditional way of life, insurance is not a primary security.? As a family member, when something goes wrong with any individual family member, we do not look at insurance. As a traditional African family, we contribute to help our member.? So insurance is still alien to our way of life.?

On the part of practitioners, Ojumah said that their insurance products and services have not been particularly innovative while claims of administration process are still a problem in the market.

For the immediate past Chairman of Nigerian Insurers Association, NIA, Mr. Olusola Ladipo-Ajayi, the phobia for insurance by majority of the public is due to indiscipline and unethical practices which have been thriving in the sector for too long.

Ladipo-Ajayi said that the matter is made worse because operators choose not to report offenders to the appropriate regulatory bodies.

He stated that operators will choose to complain rather than report defaulters of laid down rules and regulations in the sector, adding ?The most difficult thing in this industry is that we know ourselves too much. Everybody complains but nobody is reporting.?

For Adetimehin, every fundamental has to be addressed before the government can begin to talk of growth in the economy adding that the insurance in any economy should not be downplayed.

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Source: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2012/08/lack-of-insurance-for-okada-contributes-to-poverty-increase/

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