As some groups of youths get set to mark the first anniversary of #EndSARS, indigenes of Lagos under the aegis of Omo Eko Pataki have called on the state government to remove the toll booths on both the Admiralty Circle and the Lekki- Ikoyi toll gates, saying it should do this in order to ensure the endurance of peace and genuine reconciliation among all Nigerians who dwell in the state.
Trustee of the group, Major General Tajudeen Olanrewaju (GOC), who is also former General Officer Commanding (GOC), Third Armored Division of the Nigerian Army, made the call in a release titled: “Lessons of Endsars: A Year After,” pointing out that there was the need to remove those toll gates as they “were then and are still objects of hate and aversion amongst commuters and motorists.
“The Lagos State government should remove the toll booths on both the Admiralty Circle and the Lekki-Ikoyi toll gates.
“The toll gates were and are still objects of hate and aversion among commuters and motorists.”
This was just as Olanrewaju, who is also former Minister of Communications, posited that the lesson to learn from the #EndSARS protest of last year, based on his own background and experience as a war general in the Nigerian Civil War, was that nothing meaningful can be achieved through violence, adding that pursuit of unity and peace for the country should be key.
The elder statesman, while making the call, argued that it would be insensitive and wrong on the part of the state government to bring back the toll gates which no doubt would add to the economic misfortunes of people of Lagos at a time of great economic crisis when the rich and the poor were feeling the harshness of a depressed economy.
According to him, should the toll gates be brought back, transporters will increase their fares; traffic gridlocks will return, adding that man-hours would be wasted, even as he sadly noted that motorists often collapsed in the heat and emission of choking carbon monoxide.
“At a time of great economic crisis when the rich and the poor are feeling the harshness of a depressed economy, it will be insensitive and wrong to bring back the toll gates which no doubt will add to the economic misfortunes of our people.
“Transporters will increase their fares; Traffic gridlocks will return, stretching from Ozumba Mbadiwe to Ajah and from Alexander in Ikoyi backing up to the Third mainland bridge. Man hours will be wasted. Motorists often collapse in the heat and emission of choking carbon monoxide. Surely, this is not what we want,” Olanrewaju said.
Besides, the former minister declared the Lekki axis as an unplanned and increasingly growing city with only one exit and one entrance, saying that there was hardly any manufacturing plants or any major industries there save vast estates and various residential abodes.
Olanrewaju, while noting that Lagos is about the only major metropolis on earth where there were two intracity toll gates, whereas elsewhere Toll gates were often placed between cities, said the danger with such in Lekki- Ikoyi axis “is that the road is perpetually clogged, entrapping motorists in a permanent gridlock thereby creating opportunities for roving robbers and outlaws who rob both commuters and motorists at will.”
The elder statesman, therefore, called on the state government to use its resources to build alternative roads to alleviate the pains and anguish of commuting on the Lekki axis, urging that the long-proposed Fourth Mainland Bridge and the seemingly abandoned Metroline which former Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola started should be resuscitated to open the Lekki corridor.
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