Category: Building & Properties

Many who ply the roads virtually go through hell.The Ikorodu-Sagamu and Ikorodu-Ijebu-Ode roads have collapsed. Motorists who use the roads do so at their own peril, reports Seyi Odewale who says the federal roads require urgent rehabilitation.

•Motorists paint gloomy picture of Ikorodu-Sagamu-Ijebu-Ode roads

Saheed Azeez, a driver plying the Ikorodu-Abeokuta route via Sagamu, is a sad man. His two vehicles operating on the route are off the road. They are in terrible shape. Besides, he is servicing a huge debt since he got the vehicles on hire purchase. The reason for his despondence is obvious: the dilapidated Ikorodu/Sagamu road, which he plies enroute Abeokuta, has driven him out of business. Since he became jobless, he has joined the rank of Agbero (touts) to collect tolls to earn a living.

“My two vehicles, Mitsubishi Space Wagon, have not worked since January this year. The one I gave to a colleague was the first to pack up and I thought the fellow was careless, but I knew better when the one I was driving started to develop problems. I have changed virtually every part of the vehicle with no possible remedy. The engine got bad after I was involved in an accident. My car’s bottom plate hit a big stone and spilled the oil on the road. Before I could notice the engine got knocked,” he lamented in Yoruba language.

Azeez is not alone. His colleagues also have horrible tales to tell. The road, they said, has dealt with them and their business. “There is nobody who has not tasted this bitter pill in the past five years or more. The few still plying that route are those who have access to money or help from relatives and friends. That road is killing us,” he said.

He continued: ”We were always running into one problem or the other. There is no day one of our vehicles will not break down on Ikorodu-Shagamu road, especially between Ogijo and Portland Cement factory end of the road. That road has been so bad to the extent that we ventured into Ikorodu-Ijebu-Ode road to link Ijebu-Ode/Ore Expressway, en route Abeokuta.”

But the alternative route, which could have temporarily solved their problem is worse than the one they tried to avoid. “The Ikorodu/Ijebu-Ode road, which could have solved our problem, is unfortunately, worse than the one that has pushed most of us out of business. Apart from the fact that it is longer, it has potholes and craters in almost every 10 metres of its stretch. Not only that, there is a particular spot around Parafa, a settlement on that road that has made plying the road an unpleasant experience,” Azeez said.

Azeez and his colleagues constitute a fraction of road users going through harrowing experiences such as these daily. Aside the Ikorodu-Sagamu road, there are other roads yearning for attention, which have, over the years, made life miserable for those who unfortunately find themselves in these areas.

Most residents of the fast-growing Ikorodu and its adjoining towns, which stretch from Lagos to Ogun State, are worse off, judging by their experiences on the two roads that link them with other states through Ogun State. Relatives have been lost through avoidable accidents.

Painting a picture of horrible experiences people have had on the roads, Azeez said: “Many relatives have lost their loved ones on these two roads. About a month ago a family of six lost their lives on the Ikorodu-Ijebu-Ode road when going for graduation of their daughter. The young lady lost her parents, a neighbour and two others in the crash.

‘’So also is the Ikorodu-Sagamu road. Most trailer and fuel tanker owners have gone bankrupt due to accidents their vehicles have had when conveying petroleum products from NNPC depot at Mosimi or Cement at WAPCO plant,” he said.

To him, most accidents on the roads were avoidable. “The two roads have brought avoidable sorrow and hardships on innocent people who either travelled on them or whose relatives used them,” he said.

“But for Ketu-Ikorodu road, undergoing expansion through World Bank’s assistance, people living in that axis would have been cut off from both their state and the neighbouring states.

”What we go through daily in this part of the state is better imagined than experienced. Apart from what our vehicles are subjected to through wear and tear, man-hour loss and stress experienced on both Ikorodu/Sagamu and Ikorodu Ijebu-Ode roads have made most landlords to either relocate or seek refuge elsewhere. The only respite for those of us working on the Island (Victoria Island or Ikoyi) is the Ferry Service, which takes people through the Lagoon,”said Muyiwa Idowu, an insurance marketer whose office is on the Victoria Island.

Just last week, a national daily reported the termination of the contract for rehabilitating the almost 25-kilometre Ikorodu-Sagamu road by the Federal Government. The Minister for Works, Mike Oziegbe Onolememen, who was represented at an event by a member of staff of his ministry, Abubakar Mohammed, said the contract awarded to a construction firm, Hajaig, in 2009 would be terminated because the contractor could not make the deadline for the contract. Added to this is that the firm has only executed 10 per cent of the contract.

One had thought commuters and people using this route would be happy that the government has eventually come to their rescue by terminating the contract on that road. But the expected euphoria did not come with the news. Their indifference is not far-fetched; the Federal Government has not only shown utter neglect for most roads in the southwest geo-political zone, it has also proven that political leaning of the zone is the cause of their predicament on roads belonging to the Federal Government.

They said the Federal Government has been so uptight about efforts by Lagos to salvage these roads. But the minister reacted to this. He said: “I want to clarify the fact that there is no contract between the Federal Ministry of Works and any state government, most especially Lagos, on the rehabilitation of federal roads. The most important item here is for all federal roads to be motor able. Before any state can repair federal roads in its domain and be reimbursed1 thereafter, the project must be approved by the President and the state most adhere strictly to the guidelines.”

However, interventions by the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA) have made the roads a bit passable. In the words of FERMA engineer in-charge of the two roads, Tayo Awodun, “it is not in the schedule of his agency to construct roads, what the agency simply does is to introduce palliatives in reducing hardships people go through on these bad roads.”

He said: “At FERMA we don’t construct roads, not that we cannot do it, but what falls within the schedule of this agency is to apply palliatives on bad portions of the federal roads pending the complete rehabilitation of such roads when the need arises.”

Speaking with The Nation, where he and his crew were filling the 500-metre bad spot on Ikorodu/Ijebu-Ode road with rock boulders of about 20mm in size, Awodun said the civil service rules do not allow him to talk about the two roads -Ikorodu/Sagamu and Ikorodu/Ijebu-Ode, which are under his watch.

He, however, said the Ikorodu/Sagamu road would soon be okay since major palliative measures have been done by his group. “Motorists will soon begin to enjoy that road because we have been able to do some substantial work to make the road better. We are working on the drains and bad portion in Ogijo, the border town between Lagos and Ogun states,” he said.

Achieving better results in either road construction or rehabilitation during rainy season, he agreed, is a tall order. Nevertheless, he said roads could still be maintained and constructed during the rainy season provided it was not done while the rain was falling. “Asphalt can still be laid during this period provided the rain is not failing at that particular time,” he said.

What is responsible for the bad condition of most of these roads, he said, is lack of proper drains and culverts. “Lack or near lack of proper drains and culverts has been responsible for most of the bad conditions of these roads,” Awodun said.

He, however, refused to disclose how much had been spent so far in putting the roads in order. “I will not tell you anything about that. If you need any information on that you may make your request to the appropriate quarters to give that to you. As you can see my job is to work on what is assigned to me,” he said.

While confirming that the contract on Ikorodu/Sagamu road has been cancelled, Awodun said the time frame for the completion of projects on both roads would not be beyond the end of the year. “We hope to finish the work before the end of the year,” he said, acknowledging the fact that bad roads have caused so many avoidable deaths.

The United Nations’ Secretary-General, Ban Ki Moon at an event to mark this year’s Global Road Safety Week, announced that about 1.3 million people die in road accidents each year, with as many as 50 million sustaining injuries and over 80 per cent of such accidents occurring in developing countries.

Nigeria has been noted as having the highest in Africa and being rated 191 out of the 192 countries classified as those with unsafe roads.

Mandilas House was a popular building on Lagos Island. It was a landmark of sorts used to describe how to locate certain places, especially “quayside”, where imported wears and accessories abound in the 70s and 80s. In the past few years, the building has been in ruins. It is now being renovated to restore its beauty, report Seyi Odewale and Okwy Iroegbu-Chikezie.

When Mandilas House was built about 40 years ago, it was one of the defining landmarks in Lagos. It was one of the buildings that defined the character and appearance of Broad Street on Lagos Island. The building predated what would later become the nation’s economic hub, an equivalent of the legendary Wall Street in the United States.

Businesses and corporate offices jostled for spaces on Broad Street because of the springing up of high rise buildings, with Mandilas House taking the lead. The building, as most Lagosians would say, is synonymous with Broad Street.

However, its defining role dipped a few years back when the 16-floor building went to seed. The building, which hitherto served as the Mandilas Group’s flagship, had become a shadow of itself and was begging for attention. The group has taken a proactive step to renovate the building.

In an interactive session with reporters in Lagos last week, Mandilas representatives and the contractor handling the renovation, explained the extent of work to be done and the company’s resolve at restoring the building.

What possibly informed the decision to renovate the building, according to the group, was the need to make the edifice look like its counterparts on the street. Also there is the need to maximise profit, which might have been lost during the time the major part of the building was inhabitable, they said.

The Managing Director of Tabak Construction Nig. Ltd, Mr BabatundeAkinyeye, whose firm got the contract of renovating the building, described Mandilas House as the flagship of the Mandilas Group. He said: “As you can see, the work at hand is to renovate and improve the Mandilas building. The building is the flagship of the Mandilas Group The group has buildings across the nation (Lagos, Port Harcourt, Abuja, Ilorin etc.). We are privileged to have been invited to put this building back into a tenable condition.

“We have invited the press to let the whole world know about what is happening. That the Mandilas building has changed and a couple of things will change. You can see that where we are, some renovation has been done. Work is still continuing.”

Tabak’s Project Director and the engineer supervising the project, TajudeenAdedayo, explained why the project was given to Tabak.

He said: “In recognition of the fact that most corporate organisations want to concentrate on their core competence, while subletting or contracting their support services, and this support service we are rendering is our core competence.”

He continued: “What we are doing is to change the face of Mandilas House, so that it can be let. The building is 16 floors and we are renovating eight floors and its exterior part. The whole idea is to make the floors look better. What we want to do is make it compete with other buildings around.”

Adedayo noted that occupants of the building have had to contend with seemingly intractable challenge of space to park their vehicles and different characters of different shapes and sizes had terrorised them either by impounding their vehicles or outrightly vandalising them. The good news, according to him, is that all those would be a thing of the past as the renovation would take care of parking space for the occupants and their guests.

“Of course, there are challenges like parking space. All these we have looked at and we have come to the conclusion that the building is going to sell by the time we change its face. Right now, we have two floors that are supposed to be used as car parks, but they are not fully being used. So, we intend to bring that back into operation. In addition, we intend to provide additional parking space and shuttle buses within the Marina area where people that are going to occupy this building can get buses that will drop them in front of the Mandilas building,” he said.

On why it was only eight floors that would be renovated out of the 16 floors in the edifice, Adedayo said the first seven floors of the building are being occupied by tenants, whose tenancy has not expired.

“Right now, there are seven floors being occupied. Once the renovations on the eight to 16 floors are done, maybe the next stage can be extended to those on floors seven down to the ground floor. And not only this, we will work on the lobby as well,”he said.

Asked what the age of the building was and if structural integrity test had been carried out on the building, Adedayo said the building is about 40 years old.

“I think the building is about 40 years. But what is very critical here is that before we undertake the job of changing the face of the building, we have already gone ahead to do structural integrity tests on the building and we are convinced that the building would last for years,” he explained.

On the extent of work done so far, he said heavy partitioning done on the floors before had been removed, the PVC tiles scraped and ceramic tiles put as replacement. “Now if you had come here before we started working, you would have seen a lot of partitions, which we have demolished because we want each floor to be an open space. And we want to encourage whoever is occupying the floors to go on light partition. Most corporate organisations are using light partitioning in their offices. Then if you look at the floors you would see that we have laid ceramic tiles on them to replace the PVC that were there before,” he said.

Two out of the three elevators in the building, according to Adedayo, would be replaced to complement the only one working. “In the next two to three months, we are going to change two lifts out of the three here and they are going to be brand new. We are already working on that. And you know we can’t get them off the shelf. We have to order for them and that is being worked on,” he said.

The exterior renovation, Adedayo said, would bring out the beauty of the building. “On the exterior, we are going to clad the Broad Street end of the building with Aluco Bond, Aluminium tiles,” he said.

Asked why the renovation is taking place at this time, Mandilas Group Property Manager, Mr Ernest Onyeze said: “Something has to be done at a particular time and building at some point will require rehabilitation and that is what we have started doing and let us not deceive ourselves it’s a matter of money. When you do not have money, you cannot do anything and when you have money you will begin to do what you should do, and that is why we are doing what we are doing now,” he said, adding that about N300million would be spent on beautifying the building.

“The estimate was put at N300million. All the things the engineer has talked about would cost N300million –the interior, exterior, plumbing, generator (1000 KVA), all have been put at N300million.”

The time frame for the renovation according both the contractor and the property owners, represented by the property manager, is before the end of the year. “Before the end of the year substantial work would have been done. As soon as we finished with the nitty-gritty of tilling and the painting and other things, we will start with the exterior, that is, the cladding aspect.

“Then the lifts will take a period of three months to be installed. This is because the shaft is in existence and we are using Otis lift. The company will fabricate the cars that match the existing shafts. That is why it will take three months.

This building is one of the strongest buildings around this place,” he said.

On the kind of clientele expected to occupy the building when it is completed, Mr Akinyeye added: ”There is only one client we may not allow here and that is someone who may bring in goods to sell, I mean traders or those who may use the place as warehouse. We don’t want a repeat of Bangladesh incident,” Akinyeye said.

Aside determining the kind of people expected in the building after its renovation, Akinyeye said his firm, apart from renovating the building, has gone a step further to manage the place for at least, 15 years for its owner. “We are currently working on renovation and after this we will manage the building for at least, the next 15 years,” he said.

He and the property manager also spoke on the expected value of the property when completed. “Current value per square metre is N15,000 and when the project is completed, it will not be less than N20,000 for a start. You know with the renovation, value has been added to the building and this automatically increases the price tag and considering the location of the property,” Akinyeye said.

On the provision of fire equipment, Onyekenze said the nine floors of 480 square metre space each billed to be renovated, have two exit stairs each in case of an emergency or fire. “We have exits at both ends of the building. We also have dry riser and wet riser. In addition, we have fire fighting equipment. We are looking at acquiring fire fighting equipment like FM 2000,” he said.

People, Akinyeye said have begun to show interests in renting the building, thus giving it a high prospect.

“Recently, we have an organisation that has shown interest in renting the whole building, but we could not give it to them. I think that is about two weeks ago and the whole building would not be sufficient for that organisation. So the prospects are quite high,” he said.

As regards every I’s and T’s that need to be dotted and crossed concerning the legal work on the building, Mandilas Legal Adviser, Mr Adegboye said the authorisation has been obtained to ease whatever obstacle that might want to obstruct the work.

He was corroborated by Mr Akinyeye, who said: “All approvals have been sought and got. The officials of the Lagos Island Local Government Council were here, they went round and they promised coming back to check from time to time. And if there is any assistance we may need, they promised they will render it. They are fully aware of the renovation.”

At the end of the chat, reporters were conducted round the floors to assess work done so far. Tiles have already been laid on floors 16 and 15, while the air conditioning cabinet and tunnel are being repaired.

The group reportedly owns another modern eight-storey office building at 35, Simpson Street, Lagos, which serves as its operations headquarters.

It also has other 31 properties in the country, which are either being used by the group or are leased out.