Lagos State government has ordered roadside traders, oil barons, transportation unions using roads as garages, and all forms of illegal business operations on medians and entire stretch of Lagos-badagry Expressway and Oshodi-abule Egba corridors to vacate or face arrest and prosecution.
The decision to oust the affected persons and businesses from the roads was announced on Wednesday by the inter-ministerial ad-hoc committee set up by the government in the wake of May 30, Executive Order issued by Governor Babajide SanwoOlu on zero tolerance for traffic and environmental nuisances as well as indiscriminate dumping of refuse across the metropolis of Lagos.
The ad-hoc inter-ministerial committee comprised of ministries of transportation, environment, works and infrastructure, taskforce on miscellaneous offences, Lagos State Parks and Gardens Agency, and Lagos Waste Management Authority.
Taiwo Salaam, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Transportation, who briefed journalists at Alausa, said the vacation became imperative to arrest the increasing disorderliness still being experienced on the Lagos Badagry and Oshodi-abule Egba roads.
“It is disheartening to say that the state of the two roads is that of total lawlessness through the activities of traders who have converted BRT corridors into trading centres; illegal activities of oil barons and gangs, especially at Eric Moore, who are using the corridor as their base; indiscriminate dumping of refuse on the BRT corridors; traffic bottleneck due to activities of some transport unions domiciled on these corridors and total breakdown of the traffic laws of the state,” Salaam said.
According to the permanent secretary, the order would enable the government move in for rehabilitation of the road as well as clear the nuisance and restore sanity.
“The public is hereby intimated of the plans of the Lagos State government to clean up the roads and recover the rights of way. Of equal importance is the environmental regeneration of the entire stretch of the roads which has been taken over by shanties, refuse and vegetal nuisances,” he said.
He noted that the clean up of nuisances on the corridors, which had combined to the make them eyesores with stench constituting serious health threats to the people, was expected to commence next week.
