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By Vivian Onyebukwa
Armed with a long stick, a woman traffic warder busy chased commercial motorcycle operators popularly known as okada, tricycle riders (keke), and bus drivers, trying to stop them from causing obstruction on the road. The other traffic warder, a man, was there also controlling the traffic with much sweat. Some other traffic officers were seen taking shelter inside a nearby building after having stayed too much under the sun, ensuring a free flow of traffic.
The number of cars, keke and okada were too many to grapple with, each trying to outwit the other to find a parking space to be able to pick passengers, thereby causing obstruction. Even the human traffic was something else. Road side hawkers were busy preventing their wares from being pushed down by passersby, as they have occupied much part of the road. The blaring horns from cars were enough to send one to a psychiatric hospital. The whole situation was chaotic.
Welcome to Jakande Estate Gate, Ejigbo, Lagos, where traffic has become the norm; a traffic situation which some have described as the mother of all traffics within the environs. This situation has become a regular ugly experience to the road users and has stretched even beyond the Estate to Ago roundabout and Cele. It is a nightmare for commuters as the road is the only one leading to the densely populated areas such as Ijegun, Isheri, Ikotun, Ejigbo and Jakande Estate. Most times people spend an average of four hours trying to cross the less than two kilometres road linking these areas.
Saturday Sun visited the area to observe the scenario, and some issues were identified by some people as the cause of this daily nightmare. They include bad road, reckless parking by road users such as Okada, Keke, and human traffic. Road side hawkers are also said to be part of those who constitute nuisance on this road. All these people struggle to make do with the remaining little space on the road.
A man who simply identified himself as Dele noted that the Estate gate is a rallying point for passengers coming from Cele, Ejigbo, Jakande, Ikotun, Ijegun and Isheri as it connects different parts of Lagos. According to him, a lot need to be done by the government to bring sanity on the road. He wondered if there were any local government authorities present in the area who could, at least, drive hawkers away from the road.
Olanrewaju, who operates a commercial tricycle, popularly known as Keke Marwa that plies the Jakande Gate to Ilasa route, attributed the problem to a pothole on one side of the road. Pointing at the spot, he said: “There is a big hole there which is causing this traffic. When people try to avoid it, it slows them down, and within these few seconds, traffic builds up and we can’t make many trips.” He implored the government to repair the damaged spot.
Another keke operator, a lady who simply identified herself as De-Presh, blamed the government for causing untold hardship on people through the traffic.
The lady, a native of Mbaise, Imo State, who transports passengers from Jakande Gate to Cele told the reporter: “Government is not doing anything to end the traffic. Even the traffic police officers are not doing their work very well, except the ones on morning shift. In the evenings, no one controls this place. Some of the traffic warders would just come with their uniforms and sit at a particular spot. Government should really do something about this place because the road leads to a lot of places such as Ejigbo, Jakande, Ikotun, Ijegun, Isheri and others. You see people coming from different directions. So the government needs to remedy the traffic situation.”
She also lamented how the traffic has affected her business, noting that she and other operators had to start charging extra fares to cover up the lost period spent in traffic. “When the road is free, the price goes down. But when there is traffic, we keep on charging higher fares from Cele Express to Jakande Gate. I ply the Cele-Gate route more than 20 times from in a day. But without traffic, I can do more than that.”
Ayo is a Keke driver that operates from Jakande Gate to Ago Palace Roundabout. Ayo, who resisted the interview initially for fear of victimisation from the authorities, lamented the ugly situation of the road. “This road is too small. The government should expand the road and also do an overhead bridge. Cars, okada and keke, all jam together at that entry point of Jakande Estate Gate. But if there is an overhead bridge, it will reduce the traffic.”
On how the situation has affected his business, he said: “There is nothing we can do because it has become part of the job, except that it would be slowing your movement. Where you are supposed to go in five minutes, you could spend about 25 minutes.”
He implored the police to also control the bike riders so as to reduce the traffic. “I suggest that the police can be on duty also in the evenings. If they do that, it will help to reduce the traffic when the number of bikes is many, just like they do in Ago Palace road.”
A resident, Mike Johnson, an electrician, took time to explain the scenario to Saturday Sun. Pointing at the Jakande Gate from the other side of the road facing the estate, he said: “If you stand here, you will see people coming from Ijegun, Cele to Ijegun, and some, going from Cele to Ejigbo and Ikotun. But to avoid the traffic, people coming from Cele who want to enter Ijegun Road, are only allowed to move a bit further, turn to the left and enter through the Jakande Estate gate to avoid traffic. But you still find out that all of them do together, that is, those coming from Ikotun and Ejigbo.”
Just like Ayo, the keke driver, Johnson advised government to build a flyover across so that those going to Ijegun, Igando, Ikotun can link their destinations through the flyover.”
He equally blamed hawkers for blocking the road with their wares. “The hawkers are the greatest offenders. They occupy half of the road with their goods, especially in the night. When you come here at night after the close of work, the premises of a particular bank (names withheld by us) becomes a market square. All these coupled together causes heavy gridlock here.”
The traffic issue has become a blame game. When Saturday Sun spoke to some okada riders, they pointed fingers at keke drivers, while keke riders blamed their okada counterparts for being the major cause of the problem.
“Because it is a densely populated area, human traffic is also a problem. Okada and keke riders keep avoiding the people because they come in large numbers. The area is opening up fast, and the government should take cognisance of that and quickly move in and provide the area with necessary amenities which include good roads”, said Lanre Ajasa, a landlord in Ejigbo area. He regretted that many of his tenants usually leave for other areas as they can’t cope with the situation.
A banker, who resides in Ikotun but works in Surulere, and who pleaded that his name should not be mentioned, narrated how he left his house at about 6.30am with the aim of arriving in his office by 7.30 am the previous Thursday but ended up getting there by 8.30 am because of gridlock on Ejigbo Road. He accused the state of paying lip-service to the welfare of the people in the Ikotun-Egbe axis, saying commuters living in those areas suffer untold hardship as a result of outright neglect by government.
Also lamenting, another resident, who refused to mention his name said: “The irony is that over 70 per cent of our people will still vote for those that tell them what they want to hear and do the opposite. The pain we go through on this road is too much.”
A resident, Okechukwu Ndirimoha, who is also a landlord, when speaking to Saturday Sun, said he has devised a means out of the mess. Revealing his tactics he said: “We can’t abandon our houses especially now that the cost of rent is becoming high in Lagos. I have devised a means of plying the road mornings and nights. I leave the house early in the mornings and come back late at night when the traffic must have gone down”.
