The on-going nationwide youth protest is taking several new dimensions. Protesters who massed in over five -roadblocks within one kilometer of Lagos-Badagry Expressway have shifted focus from #EndSARS to calling on the government to fix the largely collapsed road which links Nigeria to the West Coast.
The protesting youth who marched on the Expressway brandishing placards with various inscriptions, turned back both incoming and outgoing commuter vehicles, forcing them to discharge their passengers without refunding the fares already paid.
When BusinessDay took a long-distance walk on the expressway to monitor invents as they were unfolding, it was observed that many of the passengers, rather than returning to their houses, preferred to trek to their destination where, according to some of them, they needed to get to for their daily bread.
“Really, I do not know what next to do. I need to get to my shop today else my family will starve. To get to where I am now, I have spent N800 on transport yet I am not close to where I am going to,” a man who introduced himself simply as Raphael told BusinessDay.
Raphael added that he left his house quite early and have had to trek much of his journey because of roadblocks by protesters. “And motorists have increased their fare by over 300 percent. Before now, the fare from Agbara to Igbo-Eleri First Gate was N150.00. Today, I paid N400.00 to get there and my destination is Igando,” he said in pains.
A young lady at the Igbo-Eleri bus stop who introduced herself as Rose Mustapha, agreed, disclosing that she had gone to pick her daughter from school and had spent over N1000 for a journey she used to spend between N400.00 and N450.00.
Mustapha who was angry with the authorities of her daughter’s school for asking parents to come and take their children home cursed the whole leadership of Nigeria for their insensitivity to the plight of Nigerians. “What the youth are doing is the right thing to do. People are hungry and tired of this country,” she said.
The protesters, who had no apology to anybody for obstructing movement on the Expressway, contended that people living in that part of town were not regarded as citizens of Lagos State and that is why they have been allowed to suffer on an expressway that is supposed to be an international route.
“It is wrong for anybody to call this road an expressway because it is not one. The whole road is full of deep potholes and nobody cares. If you are moving on the road from the Benin Republic, it is smooth until you leave the border between Nigeria and the small West African country. Just imagine that,” one of the protesters who refused to disclose his name lamented.
The Lagos-Badagry Expressway is a federal government road that links Nigeria to the countries of the West Coast including the Benin Republic, Togo, and Ghana. The Lagos State government in 2009 undertook the reconstruction and expansion of the four-lane Expressway to 10 lanes with a light rail track.
11 years down the line, the road is still under reconstruction with less than 40 percent of the work done. Successive governments in the state have been paying lip service to the reconstruction of the Expressway.
Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the current governor of the state, on assumption of office, went on a tour of the road and boasted thereon that the expressway would be completed in December 2020. Recently, the governor recanted and moved the completion date to December 2021.
The protesters took a swipe at the governor for what they called “inconsistency and insincerity”, insisting that the road would be blocked every day until the governor made a firm commitment on when reconstruction work would actually end on the expressway.
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