The Enigma Called Lagos Traffic

Eddy Odivwri

About a year ago, the Lagos State government in an attempt to both ensure free flow of traffic and also promote safety on the roads, banned for the umpteenth time, the use of commercial motorcycles, popularly called Okada, from designated roads and routes in the metropolis.

I am not sure that order was obeyed for more than six weeks. One year after, not only have all such laws been broken, there are now more motorcycles and in fact more menacing. If you doubt me, take a bike ride to Tin Can Port from Mile 2.

In all the previous attempts by successive administrations to keep the motorcycles out of the major roads in the city, it had always been a contest between propriety and politics.

No doubt, the bulk of the voting public in Lagos State are such persons like the Okada riders, as many “Big Men” do not bother to vote.

So, the fear in the political circles, most times, is that any government that decisively locks these Okada riders out of “business” , will receive the corresponding backlash at the polls. So, governor, after governor, have learnt to either speak from both sides of the mouth on the matter or devise ways of threading carefully on the ‘Okada lane’.

It is also a worry that most of the Okada riders (some of them graduates) are into such “engagements” out of sheer choicelessness. So, they argue that hounding them out of the Okada business is tantamount to goading them into armed robbery.

In all, the Lagos state government has remained weak and equivocal in dealing with the Okada riders’ menace.

Something has to give. No responsible government can allow or tolerate, no matter what the contra-arguments are, the level of trouble, brigandage, disquiet and ill-image the Okada riders give the city. The presence of the Okada riders celebrate the irony in the state’s slogan: Centre of Excellence. What is the excellence in having a maddening crowd (like in Mile 2 to Apapa or Mile 12 or Gbagada etc) that not only dirties the metropolitan template of the city, but also poses great danger to other road users. Is it not said that an entire ward is dedicated to patients of Okada accidents at the Orthopaedic Hospital, Igbobi? How can a responsible and caring government knowingly permit such gradual destruction of its people, all because they expect to reap electoral gains at the end four years?

To peak the nuggets of excellence, the state government must be decisive on what it wants. If Okada riders are banned, let them remain banned, election or no election. Heavens will not fall! Accommodating the Okada riders is a sign of weakness and indecision on the part of government.

The Okada trouble is just one bit of the larger menace called Lagos traffic.

Many years back the government had introduced the use of odd and even numbers on the car plates, and allotted days which odd number cars can ply the roads and the days even number cars can ply the road.

That soon got abandoned, as its effect and gains were short-lived.

The Bola Tinubu administration had gone ahead to establish the Lagos State Transport Management Authority (LASTMA) with the aim of effectively controlling and managing the traffic issue in the state. More than 20 years after, it cannot be said that LASTMA is actually the solution to the traffic problem in the state.

The Tinubu/Fashola administration furthered the effort by introducing the Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) scheme, with the intent that less cars will be on the road as the BRT buses will come to the rescue.

Sadly. It has also not worked. The BRT corridors have not been expanded to connect more areas. It has largely remained what it was over ten years ago, thus discouraging its mass patronage by car owners. The consequence is that more and more cars are on the road every day. And the choke gets really problematic.

In fact, the BRT lanes have indeed narrowed the width of the roads and helped to get the vehicles crowded on the roads, resulting in slower pace. And everyday, Lagosians groan and whine on the roads. Some even die on the steering.

It is instructive that a report by Danne Institute for Research has released its finding that confirmed that Lagosians lose N4 trillion annually to traffic snarle.

The report further indicated that there is a growth in Lagos but there is no productivity. In other words, the huge population is not necessarily translating to huge productivity. Very true! In fact, life is getting nastier and more brutish in Lagos. More people, less opportunities, leading to the feasting on the few and fading amenities. The socio-metrics of the city are heading south.

Sadly, the State government does not seem to have any new idea on how to manage the mess. The talk about Transport Master Plan is neither here nor there. For years, the other modes of transport like water transport or rail transport have remained elusive or at best irregular and unsafe. Water transport which should have been a possible alternative is unregulated or poorly supervised and so we often hear of boats capsizing with multiple casualties.

The result is that everybody hits the roads, all day long. The traffic control measures too often, get overwhelmed.

The Sanwo-Olu-led administration has toyed with the idea of building rail lines… there is much talk about red line and blue line, and even the more ambitious talk about Fourth Mainland bridge. Anytime I listen to Gov Sanwo-Olu talk about these projects, he speaks with so much oracular certainty, but almost two years down the line, there is not a whiff of progress on the projects, or so it seems. The much-talked about public-private partnership expected to float these projects appear stuck and cold-footed, if not jinxed.

Not even the mono-rail project started by the Fashola administration has progressed beyond where Fashola left it.

There are more cars than the roads can accommodate. The avalanche of private cab companies like Uber, Bolt, InDriver, etc, with their thousands of cars cockroaching every nook and cranny of the city has further complicated the traffic mix in the city.

Worse still is that many of the existing roads are poorly maintained. Despite the huge maintenance effort of the state government, there are still a plethora of pot hole-ridden roads or undulating earth roads. But even more terrible is the despicable driving culture especially among the commercial drivers in the state. Their recklessness and illegalities, like driving against traffic, all help to make a mess of the traffic situation in the city.

Recently, the state seized and sold off vehicles involved in ‘one-way’ driving in accordance with the state’s traffic laws. But it has not quite reined-in the dangerous drivers. The state needs more of such laws that can help in curbing the danger such drivers pose to the other unsuspecting driving public.

Gov Sanwo-Olu cannot or should not be comfortable with the findings of the research Institute. How can a people be losing that huge sum every year and expect the GDP of the state to grow? Perhaps more than anywhere else in Nigeria, the ease of doing business is highly an illusion.

It is not enough mouthing a certain Transport Master Plan, it should be reviewed, updated and activated with a view to solving the problems it is meant to solve. It is then and only then will the problem of traffic in Lagos not become a killer agent.

Canticles….

They Talk Technology, We Talk Cows and Bandits

Eddy Odivwri

I am so happy with the Northern Governors. In fact, more than ever before, now I believe that not only are our prayers being answered, we are re-assured that there is nothing God cannot do.

Really? What did the Northern governors do to warrant this adulation?

Are you the one asking such question? Didn’t you hear that they have resolved to condemn open grazing of cows? They have also condemned the criminality associated with some herdsmen who have become both kidnappers, bandits and armed robbers? Is it not strange that this kind of support is coming from the north?

Is that why you are this excited? Did they say anything out of order? They merely re-echoed what every other person had been saying all the while about these Fulani herdsmen, many of whom are camouflaging with the so-called cows to invade every part of the country committing heinous crimes across board.

Do not take their turn-around position for granted. It is good that they have seen the light, that the scale has fallen off their eyes. Have you forgotten that some of them had been talking about constitutional provisions that says any Nigerian can live and do business anywhere in the country? It is a milestone position to now agree that open grazing is being abused and used as a ruse to undertake terrible crimes in the land.

I am really bothered that in the 21st century, when nations are seeking ways to expand their frontiers in Science, Information Technology, and digitalization of nations’ economies, we are spending huge time debating and legislating on the welfare of cows and their minders. It is a matter that has engaged the entire layers of government in the country, including the National Assembly which just resumed last Wednesday.

Get it right. It is not just about the welfare of cows and their minders; it is ultimately about the security and safety of Nigerians and their businesses. Have you not seen video clips of how these criminals masquerading as herders rape innocent Nigerians, kill and butcher human beings and negotiate huge ransom for their captives? So it is not just about the cows.

We believe that if the said northern governors walk their talk, then they should create ranches in their various states for the herders to graze and raise their cows and save the rest of Nigerians the trouble of battling herders, being killed or raped by Fulani herdsmen. If they ranch their cows, there will be no excuse to migrate southward anymore. Don’t you understand?

But the market for the cows is in the south. How will the southerners be getting the cows?

There are trailers for ferrying of livestock from one part of the country to another.

But you know this ranching of a thing cannot be automatic. The various state governors have to plan for it. And it will take sometime before it comes alive, if it ever will.

What do you mean by, “if it ever will”? You don’t trust the governors?

Trust? Am I mad? How can I trust politicians? For all you care, they may have just said all they said without meaning it in earnest. It may just be a ploy to play to the gallery.

Or did you not hear that some of the governors, led by Gov Bello Matawalle of Zamfara State, are already negotiating amnesty for the bandits?

Amnesty for bare-faced criminals? That will be an open invitation to chaos and unbridled lawlessness.

They argue that Niger Delta militants were once granted amnesty and so, there is no reason why these repentant bandits should not be granted amnesty. One sheikh Gumi had been the middleman between the bandits and the governors.

That is raw balder dash. There is no basis for comparison. The Niger Delta militants were fighting a noble and genuine course. What are these bandits and kidnappers fighting for? To advocate amnesty for killers and rapists will be opening the floodgate for new entrants to such crimes. So instead being punished for their crimes, the amnesty will merely reward them and thus deoderise crime and criminality.

It is wicked and silly to pursue the amnesty agenda. That is why I strongly support the position of the Kaduna State governor, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai who had said there will be no negotiation whatsoever with bandits and other such criminals, stressing that they should be crushed and dealt with in accordance with the laws of the land.

But was Gov El- Rufai not the first to negotiate and pay these bandits? Didn’t he so confess that he was settling them? Did he not say, like many others, that many of these bandits are not even Nigerians?

So he is speaking from the position of knowledge. He knows negotiating with bandits will never be a solution. They are already used to huge blood money and no pittance will satisfy them anymore.

And we are disturbed that in the face of these daily killings and kidnappings across the land, the presidency has remained rather indifferent and even silent.

President Muhammadu Buhari is not a talkative person. What do you want him to say? Hasn’t the presidency said anyone bearing arms illegally should be arrested and prosecuted? What else can be clearer than that?

( Pouting his lips) Indeed! So why have the hundreds of killer herdsmen and kidnappers and bandits not been arrested, all these years? Look, don’t be deceived, that so-called directive is only lip deep. The body language of Mr President is being read by those who should arrest and prosecute these killer bandits and understand that indeed, the unspoken instruction is “touch not my people”

Bunkum! Body language is not a communication code in officialdom. I challenge them to arrest and arraign any errant herder or kidnapper and see if the case will not go through

Don’t be naive my brother. Are you not aware that even the members of the deadly Boko Haram terrorist who have been captured are being “de-radicalised” and released? Have we not had cases of so-called de-radicalised Boko Haram members who have either returned to kill their parents and other community folks or even become informants to Boko Haram? We must make up our minds if we want this struggle to rescue Nigeria from these blood-thirsty criminals, to end.