A trip to honour a scheduled appointment with the Olota of Ota, Oba Abdulkabir Adeyemi Obalanlege by our correspondent was expected to last three hours from Ibadan. However, five productive hours went into it, thanks to the notorious expressway from Abeokuta to Ota. In the midst of this, our correspondent captured the frustration endured daily by motorists, especially commercial vehicle drivers whose road is their source of livelihood.
The matter has degenerated into the point that travellers on that route have to devote a whole day for a return trip from Lagos to Abeokuta owing to the same reason. Passing through Abule-Egba to Ota, Ifo, Ewekoro, Itori, to Odeda is like a camel passing through the eye of a needle.
Many spots severally described as death traps are the features of the road, causing attendant migraine for drivers and pedestrians with drivers being the most hit as a result of the cost of maintaining their vehicles.
Mr Semiu Kolawole, a member of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), Lagos State chapter, had plied the Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway long before the road was dualised. He said the pains being experienced wasn’t there when it was a single lane.
The apparently frustrated Adedoja recalled that it did not take him and other drivers more than one hour to connect Lagos from Oshodi, Lagos to Brewery in Abeokuta in the years before 1999 when the Olusegun Obasanjo-led Federal Government flagged off the expansion of the road.
“It is so funny that the expressway which is supposed to reduce hours we spend on the road is wasting much of our time now. The road has brought serious pains to me and my colleagues. Many vehicle owners are now casual drivers because the road has damaged their vehicles beyond repair. The little we make at the end of a day’s shuttle is spent on repairs at mechanic workshop. My brother, it is that frustrating but we have no choice,” the 64-year-old driver lamented.
Nigerian Tribune gathered that Lafarge, a cement manufacturing company in Ewekoro has lately offered what is called a palliative measure at the section between Itori and Papa in Ewekoro Local Government Council. That intervention has received applause of the users of that road, who challenged the government to see the measure as a challenge to continue the repair of the road from where the company had stopped.
Mr Kolawole, whose countenance changed at the mention on Larfage’s effort, said the corridor touched by Lafarge was a saving grace and timely intervention because of what the section had become.
He said the situation of that section road during the last rain season was indescribable because, according to him, it collapsed completely such that drivers had no choice but to abandon the Lagos inward lane for the Abeokuta inward lane, thereby causing untold logjam and occasional anarchy which further complicated the hardship of the road users.
“May God bless that company for coming to our aid. If you see how difficult it was when we would all pack ourselves on one lane which was better, you would not like the scene. Nigerians are lawless and are more lawless when they see opportunities like that situation. I am appealing to the government to look in the direction of this road because what Lafarge did is not a permanent solution. The Federal Government must rehabilitate this road,” he noted.
It was learnt that the Abeokuta-Ota was the first section marked for rehabilitation the contract of which was awarded to Julius Berger in 2009. Ten years after, it is the same song of agonies daily sung by the users of that road. No visible work is done and no word from the Federal Government, let alone penalty against the contractor.
A public servant resident in Ota but works in Abeokuta offered a glimpse into what could have led to the lack of commitment by the government to reconstruct the road. Pleading for anonymity for obvious reasons, the woman who claimed to be a grade level 14 officer, pointed the finger at the Federal Government with a verdict that the road would not be revisited.
“I don’t join people whenever they complain about the road. I consider such complaint as a waste of time because what is in that matter is more than what they see. Is it only Lagos-Abeokuta road that the government abandoned? Did they bother to ask what happened to the Ibadan-Ilorin road which was also started in 2000? Did they ask about the Benin-Ore road before former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration showed seriousness on its reconstruction? Our government is known for that, and it is a deliberate policy to make members of the public to face hardship so that they would always look up to them,” she said.
Some people were curious about the role the Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA) is playing on the road given the fact that its statutory responsibility is to maintain bad roads belonging to the Federal Government.
Mr Adeolu Bakare, a contractor, lamented his disappointment on the indifferent disposition of FERMA towards the road, saying with a tone of finality that the agency has failed for the number of bad roads dotting the country’s landscape.
“I had thought that FERMA was to take care of situations like this. Unfortunately, it has proven to be an agency set up to settle politicians who work for any incumbent administration. It is unfortunate that everything has been messed up even, when we thought this current administration of President Muhammadu Buhari would be different. But the last four years have proven that Nigeria is a country programmed to operate in a hard way,” he stated.
However, it was further revealed that FERMA had stayed clear of the road because of a subsisting contract with Julius Berger under the supervision of the Ministry of Works.
An official of the agency who claimed he did not have the authority to speak but volunteered an insight, remarked that FERMA only handles roads not under any contract. “When a contract is not terminated, it is impossible for another person to mobilise tools to site. Lagos-Abeokuta expressway falls under this category,” he said.
But while the drivers and passengers are gnashing their teeth, highway hawkers are smiling as they record hugh sales of variety of consumable items, especially drinks at the bad spots.
“I cannot say I am happy at the state of the road but I make more money when there is traffic gridlock. My brother who brought me to live with him in Ota is a driver. So, I don’t like what he passes through on the road,” says 20-year-old Sola who hawks consumables along the expressway.
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