By Adekunle Adekoya

A fortnight ago, the issue of physical inspection of vehicles, beginning January 2022 as decreed by the Lagos State Government was what I dwelt on in this column. I have to revisit the issue of transportation in our mega-city once again.

I’m aware not all Nigerians live in Lagos, but Lagos is our commercial capital, the nerve-centre of trade, business and commerce; it is also a city where it is said every ethnic group in Nigeria, nearly 400, is represented. Besides, Lagos was for almost 80 years the capital of Nigeria, from 1922 till 1991, when the seat of the Federal Government was officially moved to Abuja by the Babangida administration.

The raison d’etre is again the transport issue in the city and its outliers. Almost at every bus-stop, traffic slows down to a crawl at first, and then standstill for several minutes, and on a bad day, hours. When you finally get through the bottleneck, you can’t really see the cause of the gridlock, unless you’ve been looking very hard.

It is very difficult to name any part of the city that is exempt from this malaise, whether the high-brow areas like Ikeja, Surulere, Lekki, or the choked suburbs of  Ajegunle, Olodi-Apapa, Wilmer, Ikotun-Egbe, Agege, Somolu, Bariga, Yaba, Itire and Okota, to mention a few. I really wonder how people and vehicles mill through Idumota, Dosumu, Balogun, and other parts of the island.

But whether driving or being driven, or a commuter on okada or in danfo (yellow buses), if you’ve been looking hard, the causes of gridlocks at almost every bus-stop in Lagos can be seen. First, there are men in uniforms of all types who are always at the bus-stops, yet the traffic never seems to be able to move.

The uniforms are of different types — the ones from the state, and then, non-state uniforms. The state uniforms are usually well-sewn, at least, while shoulder epaulettes and other insignia indicate which service they belong to.

The non-state uniforms are mainly that of the transport unions; one uses national colours, while the other’s colour is mud brown. Yet another wears a combination of yellow and brown. A fourth, which has retreated in the last few months, wears lilac atop black pants. Apart from these, there are various other persons who find one reason or the other to be on the road.

Looking harder, men in these uniforms pay attention to specific commercial vehicles. Some target the tricycles(Keke Marwa), others target Okada. Some focus mainly Danfo. The objectives of their attention is collection of money levied commercial vehicle operators.

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Common features of every bus- stop are markets, and roadside traders. These set of Nigerians, out to eke a living on daily basis, are actually licensed to be on the road by these people. They are levied daily, and slots allocated to them.

From the road shoulder (where it exists), to the sidewalks, traders are occupying space, and in many instances, spill on to the paved road, taking up as much as half of one lane in many areas. The other half is then taken up by yellow buses discharging or loading passengers, thus leaving just one lane for traffic that had been streaming on two or three lanes.

The space left is unable to take the traffic stream, and vehicles begin to back up, until there is near-standstill. This happens daily in Igando, Iyana-Iba, Egbeda, Iyana-Ipaja, Oshodi, Ojuelegba, Yaba, Cele, Lawanson, Mile 2, Orile, Mile 12, Ketu, Okokomaiko and other parts of Lagos too numerous to mention.

When these fellows are collecting their levies from motorists, they deploy all antics, and stall movement until the driver pays up. If he doesn’t, a windscreen wiper, or fuel tank cover, or side mirror gets removed to ensure compliance.

What is worse, the condition of the roads at many major bus-stops also slows down traffic; a smooth ride across them is not assured in many places; this helps the collectors extort their victims in many places.

What about traffic lights? Where they exist, many do not work. As soon as government installs traffic lights at some intersections, they work for a few weeks and go off; then the men in uniform resort to manual traffic control which makes collections easier.

Why don’t they work all the time? Why should there be markets at bus- stops? Why should bus-stops be at markets? The foregoing may sound like trivia, but taken together, they are what keep the entire city in traffic logjams day in, day out.

In February, the  Danne Institute for Research released a report that Lagos loses a whopping  N4 trillion annually to traffic congestion. The report, titled: “Connectivity and Productivity Report”, further indicated that Lagosians lose as much as an estimated 14.12 million hours annually while commuting from one point to another in the city.

As an individual, driving time from Apapa to Ikotun-Egbe on a normal day takes anything from 40 minutes to three or four hours. You can define “normal day” as a day there is no tanker fire, agberos are not fighting at a major bus- stop, a container truck didn’t fall on your route, or simply a day of grace from The Almighty.

These are the minuscules(?) that the Lagos State Government should tackle, and free the roads for the citizens. LASG should not worsen our woes by this compulsory physical inspection, which, as I have said, will just be another business centre operation for the boys. For God’s sake, haven’t we paid too much for so little?

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