Pain, anguish as contractors return to Lagos-Ibadan expressway

“It’s lamentation and condemnation here on Lagos-Ibadan expressway (Ibafo-long bridge axis). When will our so-called ministers and leaders stop flying and start plying this road? They come to Lagos almost on a daily basis, yet Nigerians spend 5 hours daily on this road instead of 20 minutes. Let the change start when the ministers start […]

“It’s lamentation and condemnation here on Lagos-Ibadan expressway (Ibafo-long bridge axis). When will our so-called ministers and leaders stop flying and start plying this road? They come to Lagos almost on a daily basis, yet Nigerians spend 5 hours daily on this road instead of 20 minutes. Let the change start when the ministers start plying the same road like the common man. To me, that is when the change begins.”
The above quotation was the comment of a motorist who took to the social media after traveling on the expressway, expressing the anguish, pain and the untold suffering being experienced by commuters on a daily basis on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway.
Ordinarily, Ibadan to Lagos shouldn’t be more than one hour 30 minutes, but motorists spend up to six hours on the highway due to the bad condition of the road.
Also narrating his ordeal, a motorist, Mr. Sunday Ajayi said, “I was coming from Osun State, got to Ibadan in record time, maneuvered all the bad portions of the expressway, up to Mowe, driving smoothly around 9:30 am when the traffic started, but I didn’t get to Lagos until past 1 pm. It was so frustrating, especially passing through the long bridge linking Berger. Thousands of vehicles were stuck on the highway. The whole of Magboro community was also in near lockdown.”
All the motorists interviewed have tales of anguish and frustration to tell on the road, especially since the reconstruction of the road commenced this year.
There are many diversion points and narrowing of the carriageway on the expressway with the commencement of reconstruction by Julius Berger Nigeria Plc and Reynolds Construction Company (RCC) in June this year.
While section one, from the Lagos to Sagamu interchange, is being handled by Julius Berger, RCC is handling section two, from Lagos to Ibadan.
The expressway, which links Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, to Ibadan, the capital of Oyo State, is 127.6 kilometres (79.3 mi) long. It is also the major route connecting the North to the South, as well as the eastern part of the country. It was commissioned in 1978 during the military administration of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. It is also described as the busiest inter-state expressway in Nigeria. But over the years, the expressway has worn out, with many portions of it badly damaged. Many potholes and ditches litter the expressway while motorists are subjected to pain and hardship.
The design of the expressway is not more than a dual carriageway, but the number of vehicles plying it has grown exponentially. From 349, 417 vehicles registered in Nigeria in 1999, the number of registered vehicles plying Nigerian is now over 12 million as according to a recent data released by the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC). The largest percentage of these vehicles use the Lagos-Ibadan expressway. From the North to the East and the southern part of the country, it is the only access road connecting motorists to the country’s commercial nerve centre.
The clamour for the reconstruction/rehabilitation of the expressway dates back to the tenure of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who was in the saddle from 1999 to 2015. However, the project did not see the light of the day. An attempt to also concession the road was stalled and dotted with several court cases.
Some relief came for motorists and users of the road on July 2013 when former President Goodluck Jonathan flagged off its reconstruction. The contract was awarded to Julius Berger Nigeria Limited and Reynolds Construction Company Limited at a sum of N167 billion, covering two sections of the expressway. But due to the non release of money to contractors, the project was stalled.
The administration of President Muhammadu Buhari breathed life into it by remobilising the contractors back to site in June 2016. At the moment, the contractors are on site, and this has resulted to the traffic gridlock being experienced by motorists on a daily basis.
Daily Trust on Sunday observed that from Ibadan to Sagamu, vehicles were diverted, while a lane was closed for the ongoing construction. Where vehicles are not diverted, the carriageway was narrowed to the extent that a normal four-lane road was turned to two lanes. The construction work has, therefore, compressed the capacity of the expressway to conveniently accommodate the growing number of vehicles plying it.
The rate at which trailers break down on the expressway has worsened the situation. This has caused many deaths and injuries to motorists and passengers, especially in the last three months, during the Eid holidays when a lot of people travelled on the highway.
The chairman of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) in Lagos, Alhaji Tajudeen Agbede, said the current gridlock in the area was not unexpected due to the ongoing work in the area.
While it may be a bit smooth from Lagos, entering the city could be cumbersome, tiring and excruciating for motorists. Many Lagosians leaving in Mowe/Ibafo/Magboro continue to lament the hardship they encounter on the expressway before crossing the long bridge to Berger Lagos. It has been chaos, confusion, lamentation for motorists on the road. The FRSC, which has mobilised more of its personnel to the highway, is almost frustrated by the volume of work on the road, coupled with motorists’ impatience. It would be recalled that the corps marshal of the FRSC, Mr. Boboye Oyeyemi, during an inspection visit to the expressway last month, ordered the reduction of u-turns on the road to two as part of measures to ease traffic flow. He also urged motorists to exercise patience, as well as obey traffic rules and regulations while driving on the road.
Giving an insight into the condition of the expressway, the Lagos State sector commander of the FRSC, Mr. Hyginus Omeje, said the narrowing of the carriageway, especially from Ibafo, towards the popular long bridge, is responsible for the traffic gridlock. He explained that the last few days on the expressway had been very “horrific.”
He said, “Where we have diversion on the expressway is after Sagamu, towards Ibadan. What we have from Sagamu towards Lagos are only turning points. From Ibafo, towards the bridge to Berger, there is no diversion. What we have is narrowing of the carriageway at the long bridge.
“The narrowing of the carriageway is the problem because the number of vehicles coming towards Ibadan is huge. When they get to the foot of that bridge and try to go into two lanes, there is a traffic buildup. And due to impatience, they will never even get to that bridge on two lanes; they would have created three or four lanes from the Punch axis.
“What we have been doing since this rehabilitation started is to put our men on foot so that they can maintain lane discipline, which is the main requirement for us to use that place very well.”
On the challenge faced by the Road Safety Corps in controlling the traffic on the expressway, the commander harped on the attitude of motorists who drive against the traffic, as well as security escorts and owners of SUVs, whom he said usually worsen the traffic situation.
As at the time of filing this report, the new South-West zonal commander of the FRSC, Mr. Shehu Alkali, was on a tour of the expressway for an on-the-spot assessment. Alkali, who took over in the zone barely a week ago, said he had redesigned the strategies on the expressway and was seriously interfacing with the construction companies.
He said, “What I have done is to sit down and redesign the strategies, having identified the problems. One of it is that the traffic gridlock along that road is usually caused or generated by the rehabilitation work being carried out. So we have redesigned the strategies. We have redesigned, as well as reinforced and strengthened the traffic control measures. We have also increased the number of operatives. 
“We have also increased our level of collaboration with the contractors. We have introduced certain measures such as asking the contractors to inform us any time they are going to tamper with the free flow of traffic along that road.
“We are also increasing our interface with the Federal Ministry of Works to see how we can put heads together to alleviate some of these traffic challenges that arise as a result of this rehabilitation work. We have quite a number of strategies. In fact, we have been developing new strategies, which will be implemented by the commanding officers of all the corridors. These are some of the things we are doing. I believe that in the next one week or two, you would see the impact of what we are doing in terms of new strategies to deal with the problem.”
Stressing that motorists would have to contend with the challenge as the work progresses, he called for patience on the part of road users.
He said, “The road is under construction. The only thing required of motorists is patience. In addition to that, they should obey traffic rules and regulations. You see, the space of the road has been constrained. The only thing is for people to be patient because no new road would be constructed now. They need to understand the situation. We cannot increase the road survey; the one that is provided as an alternative road is the one there now. People should be patient and obey traffic rules and regulations.”
Our correspondent learnt that road users are worried about the slow pace of work on the expressway, especially on the Lagos axis. All the motorists who spoke with our correspondent called on the federal government to impress it on the contractors to speed up the pace of work on the expressway.
“The number of productive hours spent on that road is too much, maybe government officials should also try and drive through the road so that they can have a taste of what we are experiencing,” a motorist who refused to give his name said.