Bad roads, traffic: Lagos' deadly mix
By Seye Olumide and Roseline Okere
THE flatbed truck carrying the 22-foot container had entered the service lane from the Apapa-Oshodi Expressway and was headed towards a container terminal at Ladipo Junction.
A commercial motorcyclist, Kamilu Sulaimon and his passenger Tayo, were slowly following behind as the truck driver tried to negotiate past the collapsed section of the service lane.
Just as Sulaimon tried to speed past the motorcycle, the right front tyre of the truck slid into a rather deep hole and the container, which was not secured, fell off.
The motorcyclist and his passenger would have been crushed by the falling container but for providence.
In a moment, a small crowd had gathered that joined the lucky motorcyclist and his passenger in thanking God for their narrow escape.
While Sulaimon was shouting "Allah, I thank you for saving my life", Tayo was too scared to utter a word.
He simply sat on a culvert besides the road, his head bowed and tears rolling down his cheeks.
At intervals, he would look at the container that had fallen barely two metres from where they were and shook his head.
"Is this how I would have been crushed?" he must have asked himself.
"Thank God today is Saturday," a woman said, adding that had it been a week day when the service lane was jammed with vehicles, lives could have been lost.
While Sulaimon and Tayo escaped hurt, the assistant to the driver of the articulated vehicle was not as lucky.
He broke a leg when he attempted to jump off the cabin, when according to him; he feared the vehicle would fall.
Explaining what happened to The Guardian, one of the food vendors along the service lane said, "It was only God who had decreed in his mercy that that they would not die in an accident.
"We saw the truck and the container approaching slowly because the road is bad. There was no hurry at all, and neither did the motorcyclist nor his passenger.
" But the front tyre of the truck entered a very bad spot on the service lane and I think the driver tried to move the truck out with a little more force and he lost control and the container fell off. Thank God that there were no other cars or human beings beside it at that moment, except for the lucky Okada rider and his passenger".
When The Guardian visited the spot, it was obvious that something urgent had to be done to rehabilitate the bad portions on the service lane, which had caused several accidents in the past few months.
Motorists who had no alternative routes to their destination lamented that the bad portions on the Toyota Bus Stop service lane deserved attention in order to put a stop to further accidents and damage to goods.
A motorist, Basiru Aina, who drives a Volkswagen, said it was " unfortunate that such a major highway like Apapa-Oshodi Expressway had been abandoned to degenerate to such a pitiable extent.
"Apart from the stagnant pool of water on the service lane, a major part of it has also collapsed.
"The road will be severed into two before long, a situation that could be prevented, if the Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA) acted quickly.
But that is not likely to happen and meanwhile, hoodlums have continued to take advantage of the situation to extort money from motorists.
"The same touts and layabouts who usually crowd at the several bad points would pretend as if they were filling it with sand or gravel while using the opportunity to extort money".
He lamented that they sometimes made it difficult for those who did not have money to pass.
A trader, Fatimo Olabajo, who sells recharge cards along the road said for the past one month, there had not been a single weekend that a container did not fall at one of the bad spots between Toyota and Charity Bus Stop.
"The accident of Saturday was the fourth in the past one month. There has been no single weekend that a container did not fall as the drivers tried to negotiate the very bad road.
The bad road is the only reason and I hope they are not waiting for people to be killed before they attend to it."
She, therefore, pleaded with the appropriate authorities to find a lasting solution to the problem.
In the Ikotun, Ejigbo, Egbeda and Isheri areas of the Lagos mainland, residents have also called on the state government to look into the state of their roads.
Over the weekend, many of them who were trapped in traffic jams decried the state in which the road from Egbada to Iyana-Ipaja is at present.
Some of them told The Guardian that their hope was raised when the new Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) started operation along the route.
To them, that would have meant rehabilitation of the road "but unfortunately more than six months since the operation commenced, the state of the road has remained in the same sorry state.
"What was initially meant to be a relief to the people, may even now be called a problem as the road has worsened and the traffic more chaotic " a resident, Jimoh Owoseni said.
A commercial bus driver, Jude Okon, also urged Governor Babatunde Fashola to fix the road from Ikotun to Iyana-Ipaja.
He observed that apart from the fact that the road was in a bad shape, "it is also too narrow for such high capacity busses to be using."
The poor state of roads has also brought grief to residents of other areas in the Lagos metropolis.
A resident of Beach Land Estate and mother of four, Mrs. Kate Adeniyi was recently attacked by hoodlums in traffic along Sunrise Bus Stop and was dispossessed of her valuables by the miscreants.
She narrated: "There was traffic jam caused by tanker drivers along the bad stretch of road near Berger/Sunrise Bus Stop.
Two young men, in tattered trousers and dirty shirts demanded for my handbag and phones. One of them slapped me on the face.
"I passed out immediately he hit me.
Passers-by later rescued me, but my phones including N50, 000 were gone."
She said that Beach Land Estate, which hosts four oil companies in Apapa, is one area where congestion occasioned by the poor conditions of the roads, and unguarded parking of petroleum tankers have combined to bring untold hardship to residents.
Meanwhile, the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Apapa branch has suggested that the Federal Government should relocate tank farms within Apapa ports to ease traffic congestion in the area.
The Chairman, MAN, Mr. John Aluya, said valuable man-hours were lost daily due to the traffic congestion caused primarily by the loading of petroleum products in the area.
According to him, the deplorable traffic situation affected business outfits because, would-be clients now shied away from the area.
" The lawlessness of the drivers, especially the illegal parking of tankers should no longer be condoned by the government," he said.
He urged the government to look for other alternative of transporting fuel to other parts of the country instead through road.
Also speaking, the Vice Chairman, Apapa Local Council, Mrs. Bolaji Dada said that the traffic congestion was having a very bad impact on the economy of the council.
Also, the Managing Director, Honeywell Flour Mills Plc, which has its office in Apapa, Babatunde Odunayo, decried that Apapa, which is the business hub of the economy, had suddenly become a no go area.
"The tank farms in the area constitute a time bomb. If by chance there is any fire incident in the tank farms, the whole area is gone," Odunayo said.
He said the placing on hold further construction of tank farms by the government, was not the way forward, but that operators should device convenient means of loading products from the ports.
He urged collaboration between the Federal and Lagos State governments to resolve the matter.
The Special Adviser to Lagos State Governor on Works and Infrastructure, Mr. Ganiyu Johnson said government was working on a plan to re-construct Ikotun, Egbeda and Iyana-Ipaja Road.
He acknowledged the pains road users have been going through even as he said government has awarded contract to rehabilitate the road.
In a similar vein, Lagos State Commissioner for Transportation, Prof. Bamidele Badejo said his ministry would not relent in its decision to apprehend owners of unlatched containers on the highways.
He also urged drivers of articulated vehicles to be more careful especially when they approach bad spots along the road.
