In Mararaba today, Nasarawa State, KEKE NAPEP, OKADA riders, and roadside traders have gradually taken over road spaces meant for order, safety, and mobility.
What started as survival-driven informal activity has evolved into unchecked excesses—traffic chaos, insecurity, environmental degradation, and daily conflict with commuters.
The critical issue is not their existence. Informality has always been part of urban life. The real question is control. Who regulates where they operate? Who enforces safety, traffic, and environmental rules? Who balances livelihoods with public order?
When regulation disappears, disorder becomes normalized. Just as forests become recruitment grounds when the state retreats, urban spaces become lawless when local governance is weak or absent.
Historically, cities that function well did not eliminate informal workers, they organized them—through designated routes, parks, stalls, licensing, unions, and daily enforcement.
Where rules were clear and fairly applied, order followed. In Mararaba, the silence of authority is loud. So the question stands, plainly and urgently: Who is controlling their excesses?
If no one is, then we are witnessing another layer of system failure—this time not in the forests, but on our streets. And as always, disorder thrives where responsibility is unclear.
