Anyone who lives in Lagos knows what a nightmare traffic has been in the last month. There has been miles and miles of traffic lasting several hours because of the horrendous state of roads in the state. We can’t exactly say this is coming as a surprise as since late 2018, the former governor Ambode complained bitterly about being freezed out of the state’s treasury and denied the opportunity to finish and maintain road projects. That plus the current absence of the present governor of Lagos state, Babajide Sanwo-olu (this is one of the few times he’s been headlining news this year) makes all the sense.
However, it happened, the bad roads, flooding and traffic jams are here and they are terrible. Abraham Adesanya and Jakande were particularly affected last saturday with flooding covering the entire road and triggering a traffic jam that lasted nearly 12 hours long. We cannot continue in this way and clearly neither can the state government because Governor Sanwo-olu recently resurfaced to announce a state of emergency on several roads.
He gave the directive on Sunday at the Lagos House Marina, commissioning a number of construction companies to begin immediate repairs on roads on the island and Mainland that critical to movement and navigation and necessitated they start this week. There are 8 engineering firms who will undertake this massive task and their success will determine how quickly we return to normalcy.
Here’s an excerpt of the governor’s speech:
“This afternoon, we have just concluded meeting with various reputable construction companies and all of them have been given the brief to immediately commence major construction work in various parts of the State. The exercise will begin tomorrow with palliative work on the selected roads, which are both on the Island and mainland divisions of the State.
“The contractors have been given the mandate to start mobilising their equipment to their respective sites without further delay. Their activities must first give our people an immediate relief on the affected roads so that there can be free flow of traffic even during the rehabilitation work.”
The governor has also suggested a total of 116 roads will inspected and repaired where necessary and asked that we citizens be patient with him. In addition to the Uber boats service also launched last week, it seems the governor is finally waking up from his slumber and trying to solve our problems. Is it too little too late, we’ll have to wait and see.
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