...this isn’t the first time that MC Oluomo’s association would be looking to brand itself as a technology-driven body. Just close your eyes and imagine a technology-enabled danfo bus. Pretty difficult to imagine, right? Well, the truth is that it can be as simple as pasting a QR Code on each danfo and this is what the chairman of Lagos state parks and garages, Alhaji Musiliu Akinsanya whom you all know as MC Oluomo appears to have cracked. Simply called the Bar Code, MC Oluomo claims that the technology solution would help reduce kidnapping and other crimes perpetrated by either danfo drivers or criminals carrying out their nefarious activities with public transportation in the state. “Our goal is to leverage technology to detect some criminal elements using our parks and garages to perpetrate crimes. We want to make our parks and garages as safe as possible. We will make them hell for anyone with criminal intention” – he said as reported by Vanguard. While the giddiness of having tech-enabled danfo buses coasting the roads of Lagos in rickety splendour might be driving the current buzz (at least with MC Oluomo and his people), eventually the excitement would simmer down and the core issues surrounding this move would come into question. Over the years, the crime rate has risen very sharply in the country. In Lagos, the blame was put mainly on the presence of motorbikes popularly called okadas. This led to the ban on commuter motorbikes in February 2020, a move that ultimately heralded the demise of bike-hailing companies like Gokada, Oride and Max in the state. Following another wave of clampdowns across the state in early 2022, the Lagos state Commissioner for Transportation, Dr Frederic Oladeinde claimed in August, that the overall crime rate has dropped by a colossal 86% as a direct result of the okada ban. Despite this claim, however, Lagosians don’t feel 86% safer than they did before the ban. Indeed, according to Numbeo, the largest database of user-contributed data about cities and countries worldwide on living conditions, crime rate and other indices, 63% of sources say that crime in the state has increased in the last 3 years. As a matter of fact, 74% of Lagosians say they are very worried about being assaulted and robbed, a category of crime which the typical one-chance scheme perpetrated with commuter buses falls under. The only crime category which recorded a higher percentage of worry for Lagosians is the worry of being forced to pay a bribe/corruption (88%). In March, news broke of how a 22-year-old Ogun-state-based woman, Bamise Ayanwole, was assaulted in a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) vehicle before being abducted and murdered. The story was shocking because while it was common to hear of passengers being attacked in regular danfo buses, it was unheard of about BRT vehicles until then. While the driver of the bus had been accosted, Bamise’s killers are yet to be identified until today. So, how would MC Oluomo’s QR code have made a difference in such a situation? MC Oluomo’s QR Code: What we discovered While launching the barcode, the secretary of the Lagos State Parks and Garages, Comrade Olayiwola Lemboye explained how it works. Apparently, every bus registered to the association would be assigned a unique QR code which would be pasted on the body of the bus as a sticker. Commuters would be required to download a yet-to-be-named app with which they could scan the QR code before boarding. Interestingly, the information that will be revealed in the scan does not include details like the name of the bus driver, the conductor, or its real owner seeing as many drivers do not own the vehicles they drive, etc. Rather, as reported by Vanguard, what will be revealed include the vehicle number plate and the secretary of the park/garage where the vehicle took off from. This, therefore, begs the question; if the name of the driver or bus owner wouldn’t be declared in the barcode, what then is its purpose? If the driver ha...