Lagos–Abeokuta Expressway: A sorrowful tale on how lives are being lost due to the poor condition of the expressway

In this report, Olalekan Olabulo looks at agony, pains and untold hardship of motorists who ply the Lagos-Abeokuta expressway which has become unsafe due to it poor state .

FOR Jamiu Olasunkanmi, nothing could describe the experience he goes through every day on the Lagos-Abeokuta highway. According to him, passing through that road is nothing short of passing through hell.

Olasunkanmi, an electrical engineer, lives in Sango- Otta where he operates from. Narrating his ordeal, he recounted how many of his friends had lost their vehicles to the road.

“Using this road every day is like going through hell,” he told Sunday Tribune. “It is hard going to Lagos from here and harder travelling to Abeokuta as well. This place is one of Nigeria’s economic hub. But this road has destroyed that reality,” Olasunkanmi explained.

The National Association of Ogun State Students a few weeks ago, had called on the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the Minister of Works David Umahi to urgently come to their aid by fixing the Lagos – Abeokuta expressway. In a statement signed by its president, Kehinde Thomas, the students appealed for urgent government’s intervention, describing the experience uses of the road pass through as horrible.

The Lagos–Abeokuta Expressway is an 81-kilometre-long expressway that connects Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital and Ikeja, the capital of Lagos State. The expressway is one of the busiest highways as Sango-Otta, Ikeja axis is home to one of the largest industrial zones in Sub-Saharan Africa. The road stretches between Ile Zik in Ikeja area of Lagos State and Ita Oshin in Abeokuta in Ogun State.

It is, however, worrisome that the road has become a great sense of concern and worry to residents and commuters, who daily use the road, owing to neglect. The federal government that owns the highway has failed to pay due attention to it.

But the agonies users of the road go through did not just begin. The road has been in a deplorable state for many years now and different government officials have paid lip service to repairing it. Recently, the Senate president, Godswill Akpabio decried the deplorable state of the road and promised to ensure that something urgent is done to redeem the road.

The real issue

But how did the road degenerate to its current abhorrent level? Why has its rehabilitation become a problem? Recently at an event, the Ogun State governor, Dapo Abiodun, explained how the intervention he planned with the Lagos State governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu was frustrated by officials of the federal government.

The governor made the revelation during an inspection of the reconstruction of the 20km Agbara-Lusada-Atan dual carriageway in the Ado-Odo-Ota Local Government Area of the state. He recalled how he and Sanwo-Olu were frustrated by delays from the Federal Government, right from the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari, adding that respite would soon come as the current government had eventually approved that both Ogun and Lagos state governments can go ahead with the road rehabilitation.

He, however, revealed further that the states still faced stiff opposition from some federal officials on the transfer, which forced the state government to formally award the contract in May, with or without the necessary transfer papers.

Abiodun said, “The Lagos-Sango- Abeokuta road is a Federal Government road and has been in a very bad shape for a long time. Because of the suffering our people pass through on the road, I and my counterpart in Lagos jointly wrote a letter, using a single letterhead to the Federal Executive Council, seeking the transfer of that road for us to reconstruct.

“After waiting for a month without reply, we wrote a reminder. That road was not handed over to us until the present federal government came on board. The contract for the road has been awarded since May this year.”

Tales of Agony

There have been tales of agony and pains from users of the Lagos – Abeokuta expressway from Abule Tailor in Lagos State and the Awowo community on the outskirts of Abeokuta in Ogun State. Residents and motorists lamented how many innocent lives had been lost to avoidable accidents as a result of one-way driving by drivers.

The Sunday Tribune gathered that while users of the Lagos Abeokuta expressway in Lagos State drive against traffic between Abule Tailor and the Old Sango Toll Gate, their counterparts in Ogun State are the worst hit as both sides of the road between Sango and Abeokuta are filled with ditches, gullies and crevices.

Awuru, a driver while lamenting his day-to-day pains on the Lagos – Abeokuta highway, said: “This is the worst Federal Government road that I know ever. It stretches between two states and the government at the federal level and the two states are looking the other way.

“The last time, we thought there was hope of repairing the road under the former Minister of Works, Babatunde Fashola,  but it was the same minister that dashed our hopes on the road. Imagine the level of collapsed portions on the expressway between two states!

“Many motor parts that we should ordinarily change between five and six months, we now change them in less than three months as a result of the deplorable state of the road. A large part of the expressway has completely been abandoned by drivers.”

Awuru called on both the federal and state governments to collaborate and urgently reconstruct the highway and save users of the road from the daily agony and pains that they go through. “The road is an eyesore and a disgrace to the government at all levels” he stated.

A transport union member at the old Sango Toll Gate, who simply identified himself as  Justo, said the bad condition of the road is affecting their operations as well.  “Most of the time, we have to go as far as Ajegunle and Amje in Lagos State to collect our dues from the drivers who make U-turn there as a result of the bad road and the long traffic that usually occurs.

“Many people have lost their lives as a result of the multiple accidents that regularly occur around this toll gate.  There was a time when vehicles were in traffic gridlock and a truck ran into them killing people and injuring others in the process,” he narrated.

A trader at Kola Bus-stop, who simply identified herself as Taiwo, said the road has become a death trap.

“There was a time that people were being killed on a daily basis or severely injured by drivers who drove against traffic,” she said, recalling an incident that happened when a container fell on a commercial bus claiming the lives of all the occupants.

“The accidents usually happened around Amje Bus-stop; Alakuko; Mosalasi; Kola and Caso. There was hardly a day that someone would not be knocked down by a vehicle. It has reduced now but it still happens,” she explained, lamenting that the terrible situation of the road has also affected business owners.

“Many businesses around this area have been affected. A petrol station beside my shop has been closed down while customers have abandoned a big mall on the other side of the road. We are always extra careful when we cross the road.”

Dr Falola, a resident in the area, narrated how one of his friends died on the road.

“I lost one of my best friends to the ineffectiveness of the government. He was a Lab technician at the hospital where we both worked together. He just finished a night shift and was going home when the public bus that he joined had a head-on collision with a truck at Alakuko. About seven of them died in the accident.”

Dr Falola continued: “The road appears to have been cursed. How can the same road be abandoned and be very deplorable in the two states that it passes through? The Ogun State part of it is the worst. You can imagine that there is no single road between Sango and Abeokuta.”

Adalejo Monsuru,  a resident of the Joju area of Sango-Ota,  said one of the things he dreaded most was travelling on that highway owing to its very poor state.  “One of the things I fear doing most now is having anything to do around  Abeokuta and neighbouring communities. There is no single good road between Sango and Abeokuta.

“From Sango Under Bridge, you are confronted with the reality of what you will face from Sango to Abeokuta. The pain is too much. The government should do something fast,” he said, imploring the government to do something about it.

“The road has been worked on many times but each time it would not last long. The government should find a way to channel the water through a drainage system as a way of finding a lasting solution to the deplorable state of the road. That will  ensure not just the durability of the road but also ensure the safety of the users.”

 

Call for Probe

For Abiodun Oluwaseun, what should interest Nigerians is to know how the money earmarked for rehabilitation of the road was spent. He wants the National Assembly to institute a probe into how the funds earmarked for the road in the past were spent. He feared the funds were not adequately managed.

According to him: “We have heard of billions of naira contracts being awarded on the Lagos – Abeokuta expressway, but we don’t know where the money went to. Towards the end of the former governor Babatunde Fashola as the minister of Works, there were billboards of Sukuk bond on the road indicating that it was being used for the road. But the road was never completed.

“Since Former President Olusegun Obasanjo awarded the construction of the road, what we have been having is isolated reconstruction. There was a time when only Dalemo and the Toll gate side was reconstructed. There was a time when only Iyana Ilogbo, Owode and Iyana Cele were reconstructed. There was also a time when only Ijako was reconstructed. But at the end of the day, the whole road from Sango to Abeokuta is not good. Motorists now bypass the expressway to go through communities that are not even motor-able,” he explained.

But it is not certain when the agonies and pains of Lagos-Abeokuta highway users and residents around that corridor will end. What however is certain is that the road remains horrible and with the current constant downpour, it is becoming more terrible. Though the Ogun State government has promised a quick intervention through collaboration with Lagos State with a contract said to have been awarded in May, it is not known how soon that relief would come or if the federal bureaucratic bottlenecks will not continue to hinder it.

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