Zabzan Karwor wants motorcyclists back

The Chairman of the Traditional Council of Liberia, Chief Zanzan Karwor has appealed to President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and other authorities to allow motorcyclists into the main streets again.

According to the Traditional leader, during the heat of the deadly Ebola virus disease in the country, motorcyclists also played a major role in informing the National Ebola Task Force or NETF about happenings in their various communities.

Chief Karwor made the appeal Monday  in Monrovia at the National thanksgiving ceremony held at the Centennial Memorial Pavilion, making the end of Ebola here.

“I want to thank everybody that helped our country that today we can celebrate; even the motorcyclists helped during the time dead bodies used to be all over the communities; they used to come out and tell the big people. So I’m calling on the president to allow the motorcyclists back on the streets,” Chief Karwor noted. 

The chairman of the Traditional Council, however, noted that the motorcyclists could return to the streets in consonance with  some measures.  

It can be recalled that the Liberia National Police or LNP, in collaboration with the Ministries of Public Works and Transport, issued new regulations forbidding motorcyclists from plying the main roads in Monrovia.

Police spokesman Sam Collins, a few weeks ago, announced that no motorbikes would be allowed unto the main streets up to November 6, 2015. He named the areas of restriction as UN Drive, Somalia Drive, the Red-light district, as well as  ELWA and Tubman Boulevard,  among others.

The Police Spokesman said all motorcyclists would only be allowed to ply the Pipeline, Neezoe, Chicken Soup Factory, New Georgia and Barnesville feeder roads to covey passengers.

Collins emphasized that no motorbikes will be allowed entry to the main roads, stressing that motorcyclists operating in Clara Town and New Kru Town, Matadi and 12th Street communities must only operate in these areas.

The Ministry of Justice and Liberia National Police had imposed the ban on April 16, 2015, following a riot which occasioned an arson attack on a number of police stations, including the Zone Five Police Depot in the commercial district Red-light in Paynesville.

The April 16 violent action was perpetrated by a group of angry motorcyclists  after a colleague of theirs was allegedly killed by a police man on GSA Road in Paynesville.

The motorcyclists reportedly went on the rampage  looting private businesses in Red-light, as well as assaulting female police officers.

By Ben P. Wesee – Edited by George Barpeen, additional editing by Othello B. Garblah