BY IKENNA ASOMBA

LAGOS — Residents of Ijegun Egba Waterside community, yesterday, protested the deplorable state of Buba Marwa Road in Oriade Local Council Development Area of Lagos State.

The residents blamed the deplorable road, which had failed badly, to tank farm owners, who according to them, came into the community about three years ago.

According to them, with the rains here again, they have continued to suffer from the flood ravaging the road, noting that if immediate repairs are not done, they may be forced to prevent the petrol tanker drivers from plying the road.

Buba Marwa Road serves over six estates such as Liverpool, Shalom, NPF, NITEL, Peace and NNPC with over 2, 000 houses. The tank farms, whose operators the aggrieved residents accused of being insensitive to their plights are First Deep Water, Emades, Obat Oil, and AA Ranoil.

With the ravaging flood, the residents averred that commercial activities within the communities have slowed down to a crawl and appealed to Governor Babatunde Fashola to come to their aid.

Speaking to Vanguard, Mr O. Kenneth, an engineer and Chairman, Liverpool Estate Community Development Association, LPECDA, said: “We have made repeated attempts to meet with them. We met them last year and pointed to them how bad this roads are.

“This year, we have written several letters to them, but it has yielded no result. Even recently, we have made frantic efforts to meet with them, but they will not open their gates.

“Our lives are endangered by these tanker drivers, who park along this road, siphon petrol and sell. If their activities lead to fire outbreak, that means we are all dead in this community.

“Each time, they claim that they owe us no apology, that they have settled theomo-oniles (land owners). But, we have always told them that the Omo-oniles don’t live here, they have taken their money and are gone.

“We have lived here for more than 30 years, nobody killed us, but now that these tank farm owners have come around to build their farms here, our lives are endangered.”

Deplorable road

On his part, Governor Imitini, immediate-past Chairman of Shalom Estate Residents Association said:

“The residents are perturbed by the fact that the road has cut into halves, starting from the Liverpool Estate junction. Fares have increased, from N50 to N200 on this road, though the buses and tricycles stop halfway because of the deplorable state of the road.

“Cars break down daily. Our women and children fall into the gutters because the whole road is submerged by flood. With this peaceful protest, we are beckoning on the Lagos State government to give us immediate repairs, and not palliatives.

“We have written to the tank farm owners several times, copied the Oriade Local Council Development Area and the Lagos State Government, that if nothing is done on this road within a specific time, we will prevent their tankers from plying this road. We thought this would spur them to repair this road, but our request has fallen on deaf ears.”

Similarly, Pius Ogedengbe, first Chairman LPECDA, called on the government to urgently repair the road and widen the shallow and narrow gutters, adding that business activities are down in the community due to the deplorable state of the road.

Peaceful protest

Meanwhile, policemen were on ground to ensure the peaceful protest does not turn violent.

Addressing the residents, the Divisional Police Officer, DPO, Olusola Oke, from Agboju division said: “We have heard your grievances, but we appeal to you to be patient. With patience, we can even cook a stone and it will be edible. What is needed now is dialogue, round table discussion to proffer solution to this deplorable road.

“If I live here, I won’t be happy with the unfortunate situation here. However, considering the security situation of the country, if you barricade this road now, miscreants may hijack the situation and it may turn violent. We don’t want a violent protest, so, whereever you are going, we will go with you.”