Compliance as Survival: A Convergent Mixed Methods Study of Regulatory Enforcement, Informal Payments, and Perceived Legitimacy among Motorcycle Taxi Operators in Auchi, Nigeria

Abstract

Urban mobility in Sub-Saharan Africa remains disproportionately reliant on informal transport systems operating within contested regulatory environments. Motorcycle taxi services, locally known as okada, are structurally embedded in the everyday mobility of Nigerian secondary cities, yet the governance of their operations is marked by persistent tensions between enforcement agencies and operators. Prior scholarship has examined these tensions largely through single method designs, and studies that rely solely on operator self-report cannot separate genuine behaviour from socially desirable reporting, nor can they capture the enforcement side of the encounter. This study investigates how commercial motorcycle taxi operators in Auchi, Edo State, navigate regulatory compliance as a dimension of livelihood survival, and it does so through a convergent mixed methods design that integrates three strands of evidence. The quantitative strand is a cross-sectional survey of 376 operators. The qualitative strand comprises focus group discussions and key informant interviews with traffic police officers, Federal Road Safety Corps officials, and municipal transport regulators, undertaken to surface the enforcement side of the encounter, including the operational and corruption pressures that officers themselves report. The observational strand is a structured, non-participant observation of actual traffic stops and helmet compliance at four key junctions, undertaken to provide objective behavioural data against which the self-reported survey answers can be validated. Binary logistic regression identified perceived fairness (OR = 2.34, p < .001), perceived corruption (OR = 0.41, p < .001), income dependence (OR = 1.87, p = .005), and enforcement frequency (OR = 1.52, p = .029) as the primary survey determinants of compliance. The observational strand recorded an actual helmet compliance rate of 41.2 percent across 1,286 rider observations, well below the 62 percent implied by self-report, and confirmed that observed compliance rose sharply in the presence of enforcement, corroborating the reactive pattern suggested by the survey. The regulator interviews revealed an enforcement side under its own pressures, including inadequate funding, overlapping mandates, informal revenue expectations, and personal safety fears, that helps explain the extractive dynamics operators describe. Convergence across the three strands provides strong, triangulated support for the compliance as survival framework, which positions adherence less as voluntary normative acceptance and more as a calculated response to livelihood precarity under discretionary enforcement. The study advances procedural justice theory in informal transport governance and offers grounded, dual sided policy recommendations for institutional reform in mid sized Nigerian cities.