It’s hours of pains and more pains on Lagos-Ibadan Expressway

The high and mighty who have one time or the other passed through have sordid narrations to share about failed portions and auto accidents that have become synonymous with the highway. Yet there appears to be no end in sight. From religion/crusade induced traffic jams to the current reconstruction efforts that has also brought along […]

The high and mighty who have one time or the other passed through have sordid narrations to share about failed portions and auto accidents that have become synonymous with the highway. Yet there appears to be no end in sight. From religion/crusade induced traffic jams to the current reconstruction efforts that has also brought along its own tell-tale of agony, Lagos/Ibadan expressway maintains unenviable profile for drivers and commuters alike. Below is the gruelling account of a reporter who had a recent nasty experience on Nigerian’s most dreaded highway!

Dateline was Saturday September, 19, 2014. Between the popular Shagamu interchange and Redemption Camp along the ever-busy Lagos-Ibadan highway, hundreds of vehicles heading towards the direction of Ibadan, the Oyo State capital were observed to have been grounded to a standstill. Not even the hasty-prone commercial bus drivers, who have mastered the art of maneuvering through the bush paths and the jagged road shoulders, could navigate their ways out of the jam. Occasionally, the vehicles would be ignited in apparent attempt to proceed with the journey unhindered, but after about four to five minutes snail procession, the vehicular movement would simply come to a halt again.
On and off, the journey wobbled on this way as seconds transformed to minutes, while minutes metamorphosised into hours.
For drivers and commuters who were conversant with happenings along the highway, they said it would take a divine miracle to beat traffic jam on this part of the road while passing at any time of the day.
“We are used to it. We need no Jupiter to tell us that after Redemption Camp, we are running into snail-moving traffic,” Liadi Jimoh, a middle age commercial bus driver conveying this reporter and 13 other passengers said as he used his damp handkerchief to cleanse another round of sweat breaking out on his face.
Jimoh like many other drivers said this development is a bitter reality they have had to condition their minds to live with.
“The traffic build up around this axis, we know, shall continue until the road construction exercise embarked upon by Julius Berger  will be completed”, Jimoh said even as he tuned up the Fuji track blearing from his ageing disk player. The music, he said, helps divert his mind and that of other passengers from the ignominy of a standstill traffic.
Already the construction company had expanded both sections of the road at different axis where it has worked predominantly in the last few months. With long-strech median designed to control vehicular movement at each of this axis, the road becomes narrower but pot-hole free, thereby easing off the congestion as vehicles approach Shagamu interchange. At a closer move to the interchange, the road become freer and the vehicles were seen picking up the steam that once sapped out of them by the inglorious jam.
Vehicles heading towards South East and South-South states earned breathing space immediately they diverted towards Benin-Ore road but the same cannot be said of those heading towards Ibadan. This was because, at the approach of the second old toll gate at Ogere, the movement became impeded once more.
This is primarily caused by potholes as well as indiscriminate parking at both sides of the road by fuel tankers who have in the last few years converted this section of the highway, to their save haven. As vehicles reduced their speed to join long stretch of uneven lines, horde of traffic hawkers swamped on commercial buses to sell edible items. For many commuters who have been stretched thin by the traffic jams, this was a big sigh of relief.
“If not for the fact that we are lawless people, government ought to have taken a definite stance against these tanker drivers who have succeeded in constituting nuisance on this axis of the highway,” a co-passenger, who simply identified herself Bidemi said in apparent frustration.
Bidemi who claimed to be a Civil Servant with Ogun State Government said it is an open secret that Federal and State Government officials go behind to collect kick-backs from these tanker drivers, thereby emboldening them to act as if they are above the law.
“Notwithstanding those occasional grandstanding you see on the TV. I work with government and I know what I’m saying. Were these people not part of those who frustrated Bi-Courtney?” Bidemi said as she waved her left hand as if asking the reporter to hold on for her to answer a call on her phone.
Though such allegation might not be easily confirmed, it was nonetheless true that sometimes in 2012, the Federal Government had to severe its contractual pact with Bi-Courtney Construction Company when it became apparent that the Wale Babalakin-led company had recorded no definite success in the reconstruction of the road, even with the glitz and glamour that greeted the signing of a concessional agreement between the two parties in 2009.
Though it is not clear as to why there was no appreciable progress in the construction of Lagos/Ibadan expressway while Bi-Courtney held sway, the manner that had been peddled around for sometimes is that which alleged the inability of the construction company to tame the excesses of trailer and tanker drivers who park indiscriminately on strategic sections of the road, thereby inhibiting smooth movement of traffic and making difficult any major construction exercise.
The claim was that certain powerful individuals who owned these trailers and tankers and who have established contacts within corridors of power were the ones who frustrated relocation moves by the construction company to relocate these heavy duty vehicles to spacious parks.
As the vehicles trudged their way out of the congestion at the second toll gate, the hope of a hitch-free movement was to be dashed again, when after the road leading to Ode Remo, drivers heading towards Ibadan were seen swaying to the incoming lane of vehicles returning from the city. Though immediate cause was not known, the impatience of both outgoing and incoming vehicles soon led to another traffic snarl.
It took another 30 minutes before normalcy was restored and some volunteers were seen controlling the traffic. It was after some progression at the returning lane from Ibadan, that it became clearer that a pick up van, conveying fruits of different kinds had broken down after running into a ditch on the road.
After the scene of the broken down van, vehicles heading towards Ibadan returned to their lane. But on getting to Alapako village, another round of traffic had also built up albeit lighter. Here, the second construction work being handled by Reynolds Construction Company Nigeria Ltd (RCC) was taking shape. And just like the Julius Berger experience, median have been put in place to divert traffic at strategic axis.
The lighter traffic along this section might not be unconnected with the level of work already completed by the construction company and the fact that many vehicles were still trapped indifferent traffic jams.
After successfully navigating through the construction section, it all appeared a smooth ride from the Guru Maharaji Shrine to the old Ibadan Toll Gate where the first passenger in the bus had alighted. By this time, a total of four hours 10 minutes had been spent on a journey that ordinarily would have taken a little more than one hour.
In all, a total of 137 Kilometres were covered. And like Yemi Adisa, another passenger in the bus said, as we all disembarked at the popular Iwo road terminus in Ibadan, “this gruelling experience is over for today, it does not mean it won’t be there tomorrow. All we have for now is a mementory respite”.