Keke NAPEP: Lagos tricycles explained

Stand at almost any junction in a Nigerian city and one will putter past: a small three-wheeled taxi, open at the sides, with a driver in front and a bench behind for three passengers who are usually four. Nigerians call it a keke. Depending on where you are and how old you are, it may also be a keke Marwa or a keke NAPEP.

This is a plain guide to what the keke is, why it has those names, how a ride works, and where Lagos does not allow it. Rules change, so everything here is as it stood at the time of writing, in October 2026, with sources listed at the end.

What is a keke?

A keke is an auto rickshaw: a motorised tricycle used as a taxi. Elsewhere in the world the same kind of vehicle is called a tuk-tuk or a rickshaw. In Nigeria the word keke is simply Yoruba for “bicycle”, and it stuck to the tricycle the way nicknames do.

Kekes carry people on short hops: from the bus stop to the estate, from the market to the street, along roads where a bus is too big and walking is too far in the heat. They are slower than a motorbike, they have a roof, and they can carry shopping.

Keke Marwa and keke NAPEP: where the names come from

Keke Marwa

In Lagos, older people still say keke Marwa. The name points to Mohammed Buba Marwa, the military administrator of Lagos State from August 1996 to May 1999. He is widely credited with bringing tricycles into commercial transport in Lagos during his time in office, and the city named them after him. (He has since had a long public career; since 2021 he has chaired the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency.)

Keke NAPEP

Keke NAPEP comes from NAPEP, the National Poverty Eradication Programme, which the federal government set up in 2001 under President Olusegun Obasanjo. Under that programme large numbers of tricycles were brought in for young people without work, to run as taxis and earn a living. The programme’s name became the vehicle’s name, especially in Abuja and the north, and it outlived the programme itself: in 2025 the authorities said NAPEP had long ceased to exist.

So the same vehicle carries a governor’s name in one part of the country and a poverty programme’s name in another. In Kano it has another name altogether, Adaidaita Sahu.

How a keke ride works

1. Find one. Kekes wait at junctions, bus stops and the ends of estate roads, or cruise slowly looking for passengers. Wave one down.
2. Say where you are going and agree the price. Some kekes run a fixed short route like a tiny bus, picking up and dropping along the way. Others will take you on your own for more money, which Nigerians call a “drop”. Agree which you want before you sit.
3. Squeeze in. The back bench is meant for three. Drivers sometimes take a fourth passenger beside them.
4. Pay in cash, in small notes, usually at the end. Change can be hard to find.
5. Hold on. Kekes are open at the sides, and potholes are real.

Fares are not fixed by any public table. They depend on distance, petrol prices and how much of the trip is on bad road, so ask a local what the usual fare is.

Where kekes are not allowed in Lagos

Lagos has restricted kekes and okadas for years, saying it is about road safety and crime. At the time of writing:

• 2020: from 1 February 2020 the state banned commercial motorcycles and tricycles from specified routes, highways and bridges across 15 local council areas, including parts of Apapa, Ikeja, Surulere, Eti-Osa, Lagos Island and Lagos Mainland. The government cited more than 10,000 accidents recorded at its general hospitals between 2016 and 2019. The restriction was enforced under the Lagos State Transport Sector Reform Law of 2018, and protests followed.
• Highways: tricycles are not allowed on Lagos’s major highways and bridges, and the state put up restriction signs on them.
• 2026: in June 2026 the Federal Ministry of Works announced a ban on commercial motorcycles and tricycles on the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway and on bridges across Lagos State.

Later Lagos bans, in 2022, were aimed at motorbike taxis rather than tricycles; our guide to okadas in Lagos sets out those dates. In practice, kekes are still everywhere on the inner roads of many neighbourhoods, and the restrictions bite hardest on the main roads. If you are visiting, ask locally which roads they can use before you rely on one.

The people who drive them

For many keke drivers the tricycle is a whole livelihood, which was the point of the poverty programme that gave it a name. A bad week of restrictions, impoundments or fuel price rises lands directly on their families, and when the 2020 restriction began, people who lived near the banned routes complained that nothing had been put in place to replace the kekes they relied on. That is part of why every new restriction in Lagos brings arguments as well as safety statistics.

Street life in AJ Cities

AJ Cities is a free browser game set on the edge of Ajegunle, Lagos. In the game you get around on foot, and the street life is all around you: the waiting area outside the main gate, with its benches, posters and parked police car, and men like Benny, who sells phone credit in the morning, chargers by ten, fuel in jerrycans when the pumps run dry and umbrellas the minute it rains. If you know a keke junction, you know that kind of street. For the bigger picture of getting around the city, read about danfo buses and Lagos traffic.

Why is it called keke NAPEP?

After NAPEP, the National Poverty Eradication Programme set up by the federal government in 2001, under which many tricycles were brought in for young people to run as taxis.

Why do people in Lagos say keke Marwa?

After Mohammed Buba Marwa, military administrator of Lagos State from 1996 to 1999, who is credited with bringing tricycles into commercial transport there.

What does keke mean?

Keke is Yoruba for bicycle. In Nigeria it is the everyday name for a tricycle taxi, or auto rickshaw.

Are kekes banned in Lagos?

Not everywhere. As of October 2026 they are restricted on major highways and bridges and on specified routes in 15 local council areas, but still run on many inner roads.