•The challenges of traffic and crime bring potentially new solutions
The announcement that the Lagos State Government plans to buy three more helicopters to tackle the surge in crime, and traffic snarl, reflects an imaginative look at the twin problems agitating the residents of Nigeria’s most populous city and business hub.
Governor Akinwunmi Ambode said in a radio programme that the government has put in place plans to procure, in the next month, three helicopters with modern-day gizmos.
Governor Ambode also noted that he had revved up arrangement to bolster the operations of the Marine Police and the Nigerian Navy on the waterways. He indicated that he had a holistic view of tackling insecurity and chaos in the city state.
We are aware that two helicopters were procured by Governor Ambode’s predecessor, but he plans to get new ones fitted with state-of-the art gizmos. This will enhance the fleet.
The recent robbery in the FESTAC area of Lagos demonstrated new thinking in the devilry of the bandits. They landed through the waterways, operated, shot and killed and carted away bags of money. They found easy exit in the waterway.
Where a helicopter is available and called into action, law enforcement agencies would not be hemmed in by the snarl of traffic. Such helicopters do not only have the ability to aerially monitor the bandits as they flee but are equipped enough to coordinate its activities with other law enforcement units.
This is the practice in Europe and the United States. The helicopter does not merely monitor. It also is armed with modern weaponry so that it can unleash firepower at the bandits.
On the tackling of traffic, we also know that in a dense city like Lagos, with interlocking highways and mesh of roads, gridlocks happen unpredictably. It could be caused by an unhinged articulated vehicle, a flood or even a broken-down car, or a vehicular collision.
What a helicopter does is coordinate with the traffic centre and inform where a gridlock is and where a traffic menace is developing. In the United States, this has been a useful way in keeping traffic under control in such cities as Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago.
But the use of helicopter is by no means a silver bullet. Lagos State is a burgeoning city in which the citizens must play a role. But more importantly, a cooperation between federal agencies and the state are essential.
Lagos has had a number of crises over traffic chaos arising from the trailers packed around the Apapa-Oshodi Expresway and a few others, and how a lack of resolution has spilled all over the state, frustrating mobility, commerce and profit.
Senator Oluremi Tinubu has raised the matter on the floor of the Senate and asked the Nigerian Ports Authority to work with the Lagos State Government to ease the traffic. This shows that institutional bottlenecks within the control of a federal-state cooperation stand in the way of easing the tension.
The Lagos governor also spoke of activities in restoring some of the pothole-ridden roads that have slowed traffic and led to standstills. It is a work-in-progress.
What it means is that templates for tackling challenges change as the problems wax more complex.
As the rains subside and even disappear in the coming weeks, the atmosphere will be ripe to work unhindered on the roads; and the helicopters can turn on the heat on the hoodlums harassing the peace.