In the next six days, beginning from today, Monday, November 29, it will be stress and more woes for motorists on Lagos-Ibadan Expressway as traffic are being diverted to enable the contractor carry out asphalting work on the expressway.
Olukayode Popoola, the Federal Controller of Works in Lagos, who gave this hint in a statement at the weekend, explained that the action was to speed up construction work.
“The traffic diversion is to enable Julius Berger, contractor handling section one of the project, to lay asphalt between Arepo and Warewa, a distance of one and half kilometers,” Popoola explained further.
“There is the need to prepare the ground around The Punch Newspaper area, hence the need for the traffic diversion to speed up construction work,” he added, saying specifically that the diversion would be on the Lagos-bound carriageway.
Motorists, especially those on East-West journey on the expressway on daily basis, are already jittery as a glimpse of what is to come was seen on Sunday when hundreds of them plus sundry motorists were trapped in a snarling gridlock that kept them for five hours, between Mowe-Ibafo and Punch area.
“Is this what we are going to experience in the next six days? Can’t government create an alternative route for motorists instead of subjecting them to this type of suffering?” a bus driver from the East lamented on Sunday.
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But Popoola has appealed to the motorists for understanding, assuring that adequate arrangements have been made for traffic regulatory agencies to manage the construction zone to avert gridlock.
“The federal government is desirous of completing the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway project by next year; so there is need to increase the tempo of activities on the road. Julius Berger will asphalt between Arepo and Warewa, therefore, there is going to be diversion of traffic for six days; the motoring public should, please, bear with the government,” the Controller pleaded.
The Lagos-Ibadan Expressway has become a perpetual construction site, having gone through several administrations dating back to Olusegun Obasanjo time as president (1999-2007) without completion.
It has had several shifts in completion dates and it is not unexpected that there have also been variations in construction cost.
Arguably, this expressway is the busiest single road network in the whole of Nigeria, serving as the major route for East-West trade and also a major gateway from the West to both the Eastern and Northern parts of the country.
Close watchers are of the view that the expressway and its users deserve more than they get from the government of the country.
