Before Okada: When Taxis Built Dreams and Communities in Yorubaland

Growing up in Ile-Ife during the late 1950s and 1960s, our taxi was a Morris Minor. The same was true in most towns and cities across Southwestern Nigeria. Motorcycles were not used as taxis.
By the 1970s, Datsun, Toyota, and Peugeot vehicles had become the dominant taxis throughout Yorubaland.
Taxi drivers and vehicle owners lived among us as neighbors and family members.

The system was simple and effective.
Drivers acquired vehicles through hire-purchase agreements, making regular payments until they gained full ownership.
Once a driver owned a vehicle outright, they often acquired a second one and transferred the first to a younger brother or relative, who then continued the payment process until ownership was achieved.
In this way, taxi driving became a flourishing pathway to economic advancement across Yorubaland.
Motorcycle taxis—what we now call okada—were not part of our transportation culture.
Life felt secure and predictable.
You entered a taxi without fear.
Transportation was affordable, accessible, and woven into the fabric of everyday community life.
The first time I encountered motorcycle taxis was in 1977, during my National Youth Service posting to Awka in the then East Central State.
It was a shock.
Awka consisted of the main town and a satellite community, Amaenyi Awka, separated by about two miles.
Many Yoruba Youth Corps members taught at Awka Girls’ High School in Amaenyi, while I taught at the newly established College of Education, now part of Nnamdi Azikiwe University.
We visited one another regularly, and the motorcycle taxi was often the only means of transportation.
Many of us from the Southwest found it uncomfortable and unfamiliar, but we endured it, knowing our service year would soon end and that we would return home.
What we never imagined was that the motorcycle taxi would eventually spread throughout the Southwest.
When I left for the United States in 1992, okada transport was still relatively uncommon in Yorubaland.
There was none in ile Ife, where I taught at the University of Ife, now OAU.
Yet when I returned for a visit in 2001, I was astonished.
Motorcycle taxis had become ubiquitous.
Today, they are an inseparable part of the transportation landscape.
Certainly, for the worse, they have transformed the way people move through our cities and towns.

Sometimes I find myself remembering an earlier era—the Morris Minor, the Peugeot taxi, the hire-purchase driver who became an owner, and a transportation system built on patient progress, neighborhood trust, and community ties.

Aworosasa Moyo Okediji