It hosts Nollywood and fitness buffs. Then the unspeakable happened. It hosted straggles of protesters. The rest is history.
After claims and counter-claims, the business of the Lekki-Link Bridge has reared its head, and no one should listen to those who have chosen atavistic rage over the future. EndSars rage has run its course. The Lekki Link Bridge preceded the protests and it has survived them. It was a blind witness to the story of the night when some claimed a massacre without evidence. Now, some are getting hysterical over its reopening. That is the toll gate. They say they want statues instead of toll gates.
Some of them, according Gbenga Omotoso, have been wailing from thousands of miles away. Omotoso is commissioner of information in Lagos State. Some of the wailers may even be as far as Canada and United States or outer Mongolia. No stakeholders, of course, in the journey of bridge, no less the journey of Nigeria.
They are working from afar. They are doing their jobs and earning incomes while the 500 plus staff of the Lekki Concession Company are idle, jobless and at the mercy of the unfortunate event that happened about 18 months ago and that they neither inspired nor enjoyed.
“Also, there are about 500 workers at LCC, about 90 per cent of them have been idle for the past 18 months and they have families to feed; they have friends and relations to attend to. So, for the company to want to return now, and like I said, people have shown tremendous understanding,” said Omotoso.
The LCC has been agitating to resume tolling about a year ago. But the Lagos State government has wisely temporised on the subject given the dithering nerves around the state and discordant voices around the country.
Even if something is right, it has to happen at the right time. To do the right thing at the wrong time is to court the consequence of over-righteousness. As the good book says, you must redeem the time.
The debt is staggering, and when debts mount, so do interests. The LCC cannot fulfil its obligation out of charity and it is N11.6 billion and not N11 thousand. And its $31.1 million and not N31 million.
To toll is not a sin. The Lekki Link bridge is one of the infrastructural pieces of magnificence of this republic, and a pride of Lagos. Nollywood has seen it as its interval marvel. They are yet to secure a better sight for their teeming movie buffs.
Yet the decision to reopen is not, in any sense, arbitrary. It is a democratic one. As Omotoso disclosed, the government consulted with stakeholders in the area. They include the residents’ association of the vicinity, transporters and traditional rulers. If those who live and will pay the toll say yes, then the naysays must come from afar, interlopers in other people’s businesses.
All politics, they say, is local. If the intractable voices of the Endsars crowd continue, they will find themselves in the margin of the facts.