By Mike Ebonugwo, Kingsley Adegboye, Sukanmi Akoni & Bose Adelaja

LAST week Wednesday and Friday, the patience, nay endurance, of most motorists and commuters in the Mile Two/Berger axis of the Oshodi-Apapa Expressway was put to extreme test, no thanks to the siege of motor vehicles that crippled the flow of traffic in the area for several hours.

It was a most harrowing and torturing experience for the long-suffering road users as they literally went through hell while the gridlock lasted and they had all but given up hope of any form of relief since their past cries over this recurring ordeal had more or less been ignored by the relevant authorities.

It all began on Monday, worsened on Wednesday and took a turn for the worst on Friday, with the result that many staff of Vanguard Media Limited and other companies in the area who managed to get to their offices earlier in the day found it difficult driving out at close of work as there was virtually no space for movement.

Thus, some of them either trekked long distances  in search of commercial transportation or slept in their offices. And from every indication, the ordeal may continue, except there is immediate remedial intervention.

*Confusion at the Berger Yard bus stop on Oshodi Apapa expressway

Recounting their tales of woe, many road users described their experiences as a painful climax of the recurring decimal of traffic confusion that has bedevilled the area for some weeks and which they attributed to a combination of on-going road rehabilitation work by construction giant, Julius Berger and several trucks and tankers being parked on the road sides, thus obstructing the free-flow of traffic. Most of these heavy-duty articulated vehicles were originally  heading either to the ports in Apapa or the tank farms at Kirikiri before their drivers decided to park them on the road due to heavy traffic around that axis.

Giving vent to their frustration, some of them said they could not understand why both the Federal and the Lagos State governments have so far failed to address the persistent traffic nightmare in the area given the economic importance of the Oshodi-Apapa Expressway which serves the heavy traffic moving in and out of the nation’s sea ports at Apapa and Tin Can Island to other parts of Lagos and indeed the entire country.

Before now, many users of this road have blamed the development on the menace of container-laden trucks, fuel tankers coupled with bad roads until the Federal Government swooped into action and began rehabilitation of the road which reduced the traffic for some time before it resurfaced recently making movement on the road difficult.

Following this development,  many road users had more or less resigned themselves to fate, believing the situation had gone beyond the control of government agencies, especially the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority, LASTMA, which is saddled with this responsibility.

Many road users who spoke with Vanguard Features, VF, blamed the development on the ongoing construction work on the road. Some others blamed it on impatience on the part of motorists, while others blamed the Petroleum Tanker Drivers, PTD, for the situation.

According to one Peter Esegie: “The construction company handling the rehabilitation of the road is to blame for the problem because by blocking sections of the road they have succeeded in creating unnecessary traffic obstruction for vehicles going either to Apapa or Kirikiri areas. They ought to have known that this is a busy road and that blocking any section of it will definitely create traffic confusion”.

But as far as Chigozie Egwim is concerned: “There’s nothing wrong in rehabilitating the road since that is what we have been praying for all along. But what I will advise is that such things should be done very early in the morning or late at night when there are few people on the road , and if maintenance must take place during peak hours, alternative routes should be provided for the people”.

For Wasiu Adeleke, a passenger in a commercial bus,  government is to blame for failing to stop drivers of trailers and other articulated vehicles   from parking illegally on the road. He believes this is the major cause of the traffic on that road and its poor state.

His sentiment is shared by one Mrs. Bisi Ojelabi who attributed the frequent collapse of sections of the road and the recurring traffic gridlock there to the prevalence of these heavy duty trucks which ply that route. She suggested that government should provide alternative routes for trucks so as not to endanger the lives of the people.

The nuisance and inconvenience constituted by trucks on the road is an issue recently addressed by the Deputy Director of the Federal Ministry of Works, Mr. Godwin Eke, who spoke about challenges in dealing with the problem. According to Eke who is in charge of Section 1 of the highway: “Last month, in collaboration with the Lagos State government, we removed the tankers, but they came back after one week. Aside the tanker drivers, we started receiving threats from commercial motorcyclists who just come and park in Sunrise area, but the Police helped to remove them”.

He also said that the joint effort of the Ministry and the state government to check the menace of tankers and other trucks on the road is being undermined by the challenge of where to park them when impounded.

But the Secretary, Lagos Zonal Council of Petroleum Tanker Drivers, Comrade Adebayo Atanda, exonerated his men from the blame, saying they had complied with the state government’s directive to restore sanity on the road. Atanda who blamed the development on the ongoing construction work on the expressway, urged the construction company to hasten the job in order to ameliorate the suffering of the road users.

‘’As far as I am concerned, our men have complied with the government’s terms but the ongoing construction of the road had added to our woes. The only available space is the service lane which we make use of; the gridlock is not our making and we have tried our best to adhere to government’s order,’’ he said.

Petroleum products

Urging road users to be patient on the road, he said: ‘’As we all know, tankers have to travel to Lagos from all parts of the country to lift petroleum products; this is a big challenge because it is not an easy task. Anytime there is gridlock on that road, people see us as the culprit.

I think the situation will change for the better once the construction company can begin to work in the night. That road is a business road and any hitch in traffic will bring business to a standstill; we don’t have an alternative to route but we shall try our best not constitute a nuisance on the road’’.

Relief in sight: Relief may yet be on the way as the Federal Controller of Works, South West zone, Dipo Fagbinle, an engineer, told VF on phone that he would call the engineer in charge of the rehabilitation of the road to create space for easy movement of motorists and other road users. He appealed to road users to bear with them, adding that what is happening is one of the challenges usually experienced during urban development.

The Federal Government disclosed in August last year that it had awarded the contract for the reconstruction of Phase 2 of Oshodi/Apapa Expressway to construction giant, Messrs Julius Berger Nigeria Plc at the cost of about N15 billion, adding that it was also working to fast-track the completion of the rehabilitation of the section 1 of the ever busy expressway.

The scope of work is outright reconstruction of the entire stretch of the expressway under phase 2 with asphalt laying and covered drainage system. Efforts to reach the Lagos State Commissioner for Information, Lateef Ibirogba, on the development proved abortive as he did not respond to text messages or phone calls from VF.