Way out of the avoidable nightmares
For three consecutive days last week, motorists and commuters who travelled on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway literally saw hell, when a multiple-vehicle collision occurred on the Kara Bridge, at the Ogun State end of the expressway around 2.30 a.m. on Wednesday.
At least five lives were reportedly lost to the accidents. This was in terms of direct deaths. It is doubtful if the loss in terms of property will ever be known, given that several vehicles, some with valuable contents, were said to have been burnt in the process. Add these to the many man-hours lost by the thousands of people that were stranded on the road for hours on each of those days. Just as the lives that were lost, none of these other collateral damages can be quantified in monetary terms.
I had cause to dedicate my column of October 3, last year, to the same expressway due to an experience I had, alongside my wife and daughter when we travelled to Oyo from Lagos, a distance of about 170 kilometres and could not return home until about 21 hours later. It was such a harrowing experience. Many people attributed this ‘vigil’ on the road to the clash of two public holidays, the Independence celebrations and sallah. To compound matters, it also fell on a weekend that the monthly Holy Ghost Service was being held at the Redeemed Camp on the axis. But last week’s experiences of people on the corridor did not clash with any public holiday. First, it had to do with the reconstruction work going on on the Long Bridge axis of the road as well as the multiple-vehicle collision.
The Lagos–Ibadan Expressway is a 127.6-kilometre-long (79.3 miles) expressway connecting Ibadan, the capital of Oyo State and Lagos State, the commercial centre of Nigeria. It is the busiest inter-state route in Nigeria and also the major route to the northern, southern and eastern parts of the country. The expressway, which is the oldest in Nigeria, was commissioned in August 1978 by Major-General Olusegun Obasanjo. It handles more than 250,000 passenger car units (PCUs) daily and constitutes one of the largest road networks in Africa.
Given its strategic importance, one would have expected that the Federal Government would pay attention to the road as well as ensure the construction and or maintenance of other roads that could serve as alternatives to it whenever there is a problem on the ever-busy expressway. For sure, accidents, much as we do not like them to happen will always happen, sometimes due to human error, carelessness or even dereliction of duty on the part of the government (gullies or potholes on the roads, lack of adequate traffic signs, etc). When the accidents happen, or when for whatever reason motorists cannot travel as fast as they should on the expressway, alternative routes should come handy.
But what we have is a situation where we cannot say there is any such alternative properly so-called. Although travellers going to Ibadan from Lagos and vice versa could take the Lagos-Abeokuta Road; or Shagamu road or even go through Ikorodu, the point is; these roads are largely bad. We have craters on the roads and motorists who ply them must be ready to do comprehensive servicing and repairs after each trip; that is if they are lucky to escape their vehicles breaking down during their trip. How can we leave all our eggs in one basket, which is what the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway is at present?
Even in normal times when there are no accidents, Lagos Traffic Radio usually gives terrifying reports of the traffic situation on the expressway, which makes one feel for people living in that corridor. Last week Tuesday, a colleague who left office at the Matori area of Lagos at about 9.00 p.m. did not get to his house at Arepo, Ogun State ( a distance of about 36 kilometres), until about 2.30 a.m. the following day because of the traffic necessitated by the incidents. His wife who left home for her office at about 6.00 a.m. on Wednesday was still on the Long Bridge as at 10 a.m. I have been wondering how people would say they slept on the expressway and had thought they were exaggerating until I experienced it in October last year. It is possible to be on the road of about 130 kilometres for a whole day!
Concerning the activities of churches (and even mosques now) on the expressway that contribute to the traffic chaos in normal times, many people have said (and I think it is necessary to restate it) that the government is not duty bound to give them permits to establish their mega churches or mosques on the same axis. But, since the religious organisations have been allowed to build their centres there, probably because that is one of the few places they think they can have their crowd, then it is the duty of government to also ensure that their activities are done with minimal discomfort to other road users. Detailing traffic wardens to the venues of the religious organisations during their programmes is only a leg of the issue. Is it not possible to have overhead bridges in some of these places (i.e. the Redeemed Camp) so that those not connected with the activities of the religious organisations can bypass such places en route their destinations? Why must people suffer expectedly every month in the name of religious activity?
It was as if successive governments just went to sleep after the expressway was opened in 1978, at least until 2013 when the Goodluck Jonathan administration saw the need to expand it because it was no longer able to cope with the daily traffic. Although the road is generally better now compared to its 2013 state, it is still a far cry from what an expressway of its status should be, with its many potholes; the reconstruction around the Long Bridge area of Lagos (which the contractor says poses a serious challenge because of the nature of the place) appears to be taking too long to complete. It is those who have the misfortune of passing through the place daily that can better relive their ordeal.
Nigerians need more than assurance on this road. They have lived by assurances for too long; what they need now is action to take their nightmares away on the expressway. The problem there is compounded by the fact that motorists have no choice once they are trapped in the traffic. There are no short cuts; they must stay put until providence clears the way for them. This is not good enough; and I do not think this is the best we can get. Our leaders travel outside a lot; they should replicate on the expressway and other roads in the country some of the things they see that so fascinate them abroad. After all, as they say, “what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander”. It is in areas like this that Nigerians can feel the impact of their frequent travels abroad, thus justifying the huge resources they cough up to sustain our leaders’ foreign trips.
As I observed in my piece last year, what is happening to and on the expressway is exactly the way we are; the way we are governed. A first time visitor to the country does not need to do much research to realise this fact. Moreover, security has been a key missing factor on the road. On the night I did ‘vigil’ there last year, we hardly saw any security beyond a few security men who broke traffic rules in their bid to clear the way for themselves, leaving the others to their own devices. Also, at night, the road is so dark, save for vehicles beaming their lights to illuminate their path. One can only hope provision has been made for security lights this time around to make the road compare with roads anywhere in the world.
Definitely, seeing the huge number of vehicles on the expressway, the question of what happens to other modes of transportation would naturally come into mind. Specifically, what is happening to rail transportation in the country? It is true some progress is being made in this regard because the Nigeria Railway Corporation is trying to find its feet after years of dormancy. Definitely, many people will prefer to escape the nightmare on the expressway if they could travel by rail to most parts of the country. So, we expect more progress in the efforts to rejuvenate the rail sector to give Nigerians more travel options.
It is only that we are not in a country where research is taken seriously. Otherwise, we would have known that those who travel on the expressway frequently, indeed, those who are always on the move in the country, passing through some of our roads must have been losing their ‘joints’ and ‘bolts’ gradually due to the bad state of most of these roads. Unfortunately, we would be attributing some of the deaths and sicknesses arising from travelling on these roads to witches in the village. More unfortunately, the witches cannot defend themselves for reasons best known to them.
