Saturday, 7 November 2015

Unending agony on Lagos-Ibadan Expressway

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Despite repeated write-ups, outrage and strident calls on the Federal Government and other concerned authorities to resolve the lingering traffic jam occasioned by minor bad portions on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, it seems that all cries are falling on stony and deaf ears!

Nothing at the moment has been done to alleviate the daily agony that motorists are passing through to navigate to and fro just a section of the road!

These past few days have been the worst of it as motorists spend close to three hours to pass a few kilometres that ordinarily would not have taken three minutes to drive through!

For purposes of clarity and at the risk of sounding like a broken record, the bad portion that is causing this heavy traffic build-up is from Arepo to Warewa Bus Stop. That is if you are going from the Ibadan end onward Lagos. These few days, the gridlock has degenerated to the point of building from Warewa down to The Redemption Camp!

On the other flank of the road, coming from Lagos onward the Ibadan end, the failed portions are coincidentally the same Warewa and Arepo areas and the traffic build-up now stretches up to the Old Toll-Gate area of Lagos!

Motorists coming back from work now spend close to four hours of unmoving traffic before they can reach their destinations! Travellers journeying down the Northern, South-East, South-West and South-South states now arrive their destinations very late in the night due to many hours expended to meander through the hold-up, thereby endangering their lives and subjecting them to forcefully embark on night trips they never bargained for!

The pertinent question on the lips of Nigerians is, what is the government doing about fixing the road? Suggestions have been made for palliative measures of filling up the potholes that cause the hold-up. But it seems to be falling on unwilling ears. Now, people are wondering how the Ogun State Government under Ibikunle Amosun is feeling about the mess on the road which is in its jurisdiction. If the Federal Government under the same banner of the ruling All Progressives Congress cannot quickly and urgently fix the bad portions of the road, can’t Amosun do the needful on the road and remove the blame and curse being daily heaped on the governor and the state by motorists and residents!

This is particularly evidential as the hold-up now encroaches on the lives and properties of residents in the state notably Arepo, Okeafa, Magboro and other adjourning settlements! To them they don’t want to hear the argument of the road being Trunk A Road and as such solely belonging to the Federal Government! After all, it is not Abuja that is feeling the pang and excruciating pains that the residents and motorists are passing every day!

How I wish President Buhari and Amosun will have the misfortune of being stuck for hours on that section of the road just for one day! Perhaps, they will now know the plight of daily users of the road!

My worst nightmare will be in a couple of days when religious organisations on that stretch of the road will be having their monthly programmes. If the road is not fixed by then, it may not be an exaggeration that the whole of Lagos and adjoining towns/cities will be totally locked down as the traffic to be experienced is better left in the realm of imagination!

Once again, we are calling on the authorities to urgently do palliative jobs on the potholes and the failed sections of the road for motorists and residents to have a free passage and a lease of life.

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