Time to end hellish experience on Sagamu-Ogijo-Ikorodu road, others

People plying Ikorodu-Ogijo-Mosinmi-Shagamu expressway, a 25- kilometre road linking Lagos and Ogun States, have been in pains since the contractor handling the project abandoned work.

Although the N22 billion project reportedly financed under the Sukuk bond, is about 75 per cent completed, the remaining 25 per cent, spanning from Sotubo to Lafarge Cement, Coca Cola to Sagamu, the terminal point, has left commuters in pains since March when the project was abandoned immediately after the conduct of the general elections.

Following the hardship experienced by road users plying the route, particularly at Sotubo, where there is always gridlock frustration due to high volume of articulated vehicles and other heavy-duty trucks plying the axis, aggrieved commuters have always expressed their anger and frustration over the untold hardship and sometimes near death experience when plying this all important road.

Apparently, many Nigerians are not aware that the 25-kilometre Shagamu-Ogijo-Mosinmi-Ikorodu Road was the first major expressway that linked Lagos State, the commercial nerve of the nation, to other states and indeed, other West Africa countries.

Constructed in 1962 by the Western Region government, before the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway was built under the military administration, the road had served as the major route from Lagos through Sagamu, Ogijo and Ikorodu. But today, the same road, which is an alternative route to Lagos, apart from Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, remains a shadow of itself.

It is appalling that the once vibrant road remains without any major maintenance for over almost sixty years until this abadoned rehabilitation which was started around June in 2018. It is, indeed, a road that depicts rot in the entire country, where necessary and vibrant institutions are left to rot away.

The abandoned construction of this road by Arab Contractors could continually make this all important road wear toga of a death trap, where many have died, property worth billions of naira destroyed and several man hours wasted in harrowing traffic all due to its deplorable state.

Recently, there was heavy downpour that compounded commuters and motorists’ woes, on this road just as it usually happens whenever it rained as articulated vehicles, commercial buses and cars, operating between Ikorodu-Ibadan and Ikorodu-Ogijo to Sagamu were trapped at the bad spot in Sotubo for several hours.

A 22-seater commercial was one of the victims, luckily the passengers all escaped death by whiskers. On several occasions, Lafarge Cement company is forced to open its premises for motorists to pass through to ease gridlock on the road.

Several pleas made in the past by people passing by this horrible road to the contractor to help fix these bad spots before the eventual rehabilitation, a sort of palliative work, has always fallen on the deaf ears of those concerned.

Aside from staying for hours at these bad spots, there are also reports of armed robbery and kidnapping on the road, especially at night and commuters, who were unfortunate to be at the spot till late in the evening, always have a sorry tale to tell.

The importance of this road to expanding the frontiers of socio-economic development and prosperity of the country cannot be overemphasised. Already, this axis of Ogun State predominantly and bit of Lagos State had in recent years been housing influx of companies moving away from the congested Lagos State and thus creating job opportunities for many teeming youths.

One of the reasons why many companies have closed shops in the country and relocated elsewhere within the same African continent is largely due to our collapse of infrastructure, majorly power and roads.

Good network of roads which is obviously a mirage across the country is said to be the live wire of economic prosperity of any nation just like arteries which carry oxygenated blood to human hearts and thus sustains his existence.

Reports are replete of abundant of bad roads across the country making daily living a curse to many Nigerians. The intra roads are terrible, the inter state roads are near death traps and to commute from one local government to another sometimes could be like the camels passing through the eyes of a needle. The journey that should take less than two hours could take a whole day sometimes. One waits to see how President Tinubu’s Renewed Hope mandate could be achieved under these terrible conditions of our major roads.

Luckily, the much awaited inauguration of the new Ministers had been done with yesterday, and thankfully, the job of fixing these ruins fall on Dave Umahi, the Minister for Works. Having being a two-term governor of Ebonyi State, it is believed that he is quite familiar with these challenges of our bad network of roads and he should just hit the ground running by declaring state of emergency on road repairs and construction in the country.

Umahi should try within the week to order Arab Contractors back to site to finish the remaining portion of the abadoned construction of Ikorodu-Ogijo-Mosinmi-Sagamu Road. Other terrible roads like Abeokuta-Sango-Lagos road and others across the country should receive top priority.

He should ensure that Nigerians heave a sigh of relief as far as the headache of our terrible state of roads is concerned. The savings from the subsidy removal from petroleum products foisted on Nigerians should come handy here, this will certainly be another way to harvest the gains domiciled in this controversial policy.