FOR motorists, plying the Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway is like driving to nowhere. Residents go through strains getting out in the morning and returning home at night.
The condition of the dual carriage way is bad. Some portions are so bad that motorists have to wait for one another to pass.
Driving on the 33-kilometre road from Sango-Ota old toll gate to Ikeja could be laborious.
“We have been under this terrible condition for over two years and nothing seems to be happening on the part of the government. Majority of us who work on the Island, I mean Victoria Island, Lagos Island and Ikoyi, even on the Mainland, dare not go by road to work, unless you want to get to work late. You are going to run into trouble if you try it or, worse still, if you take your vehicle to work,” said Adewale Adekunle, a resident of Abule-Egba, whose office is very close to the old Federal Secretariat, Ikoyi.
The road from Ile Zik Bus stop, if one is Abeokuta bound, he said, has been bad some time and has made many residents to either relocate to other parts of the state or resort to boarding the train, which takes off from Ijoko near Ota in Ogun State, stops at Ido Terminus in Lagos Mainland.
“That explains why you see most of the trains on this route carry more passengers than they should. The passengers have no option than to go by the train, considered faster and assuring than the road, which they cannot determine when they will either get to work or home. It is that bad. This does not mean that we enjoy the risky ride on the train, but we have no choice for now until that road is fixed and the terrible traffic snarl is addressed,” he said.
Adekunle is not alone. Okwudili, Hassan and Yusuf who are traders at different points on the road said similar things. The road has not helped their retail businesses they said. “We hardly get vehicles to transport our wares. For instance, I buy fairly used clothes at Kotangowa market, but taking them to my area in Sango has been a serious problem. The commercial buses usually charge me higher,” Okwudili said.
Weekend experiences are usually unpalatable. “For those who transact businesses on the road on Saturdays, the road is ‘hell’ on earth. To move from Alakuko to Iyana-Ipaja can take almost two hours. It is worse if it is on a Sunday, especially for those going to church from Lagos to Ota, I mean, Cannan Land,” Okwudili said.
When The Nation visited the road last week, from Ile Zik Bus stop to old Toll Gate, Sango Ota, almost every 200-metre distance of the road has one form of crater or the other. Between the old toll gate and Alakuko, there are about four different points with craters. When approaching U Turn from Iyana-Ipaja, the usual sight is an endless queue of vehicles held down by the traffic caused by the craters on the road. The same goes for a portion opposite the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) office, which is considered the worst point by commuters. Although repairs seem to be going on in some areas, some others appeared patched. More work still needs to be done, said an observer.
Commercial motorists have expressed disgust at the condition of the road, which they said has robbed them the chance of making money considering the number of passengers on the road. Although the passengers are made to pay exhorbitant fares, this they said, is not commensurate with how much they would have made if the road was better.
“With the harassment by LASTMA staff, council boys and the bad road, what we realise daily is small compared with when these problems are not there. If we quantify time and man-hour spent daily in the traffic, you would discover that valuable time and human resources are being wasted because of this bad road,” said a Kabu-kabu (private cab) driver.
Efforts to get the Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA) Public Relation Officer , Mrs Maryam Sanusi, to comment. She did not pick calls or respond to a text message sent to her.
The agency’s engineer, Lagos West, which area covers the road, Tayo Aluko, highlighted what the agency has done in the last two weeks to ameliorate the sufferings of commuters. “Our agency is solely in-charge of road maintenance; we do not build or construct roads. The road in question is a Federal road and we have gone ahead on our part, to patch the potholes and craters on the road, especially, in areas, such as Ajegunle, Dopemu and Iyana-Ipaja. We are still working on bad portions of the road,” Aluko said.
Sources at the agency’s office in Lagos and the Zonal Controller, Ministry of Works also in Lagos, said a contract has been awarded on the road, but the contractor, Julius Berger, abandoned it.
Investigations by The Nation revealed that Julius Berger abandoned the road because of insufficient funds. The project, it was gathered, hampered whatever intervention that could have come from either FERMA or the supervising ministry.
Aluko refused to comment on the firm that abandoned the contract, but affirmed that there was a contract on the road, which has not been terminated. This, he said, had hampered rehabilitation. “The little we have done was on the insistence of our boss as there were no funds allocated for any repairs on that road. To say the least, we have tried, given the circumstances under which we operate. But for the invention we had on that road, the road would have been impassable,” he said.
He added: “If you have travelled on that road lately, you would see areas where our men had worked. We did not only fill the craters and potholes with granular stones, we also laid asphalt on the repaired portions. Areas, such as Ajegunle, Dopemu, Iyana-Ipaja and other little portions, were repaired and motorists are enjoying the road. We have not finished yet; we would not because of the contract on that road abandon our responsibility. We feel the pains motorists feel, the more reason we have intervened to do some repairs on it.”
Aluko refused to disclosed the amount the agency spent on the rehabilitation. “What we always do is to raise funds within the agency to intervene in areas like that, with the express permission of the chairman. We want to assure those plying that road that work still continues on it and we will finish it in no time. At least, what we have done has lessened that hardship on that road and it will get better when we are through with it,” Aluko said.
