Apapa Lagos: Road users cry out over Apapa-Oshodi Highway Logjam

For some days now, it has been hell on the Apapa-Oshodi expressway between Iyana Isolo and Toyota bus stops.

Literally speaking, it is ‘easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle’ than for a motorist to struggle through the one-lane access route at Toyota bus stop en-route Oshodi, where six or more lanes forcibly merge into the service lane, causing hectic traffic gridlocks.

While the suffering continues, it is taking exasperated road users persistence, sheer grit and ruggedness to survive hours in traffic for a journey that shouldn’t take five minutes to pass through.

Stranded motorists are further incensed by the absence of Lagos State Traffic Management Agency (LASTMA) officials, which is compounding the suffering faced daily by thousands of Lagos residents on one of the busiest highways in the nation’s commercial capital city.

One Adebayo Ajayi said: “This kind of mess in a city that should be working 24 hours deserves the president’s and governor’s attention and ‘Executive Order’. Why should citizens be made to suffer for hours on a major road artery in the state and nobody is taking any action, including the state traffic managers?”

Others are also aghast at the slow pace of the contractor handling the road rehabilitation, HiTech Construction Company, coupled with its nonchalance towards the plight of road users in managing the attendant logjam experienced by their road barriers.

Articulated vehicle drivers conveying products from Olam Foods also do compound the gory experience, just as traders at the popular Ladipo market disrupt flow of traffic with their activities.

Road users, therefore, called on the Lagos State governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, to intervene and prevent another avoidable disaster, as petroleum tankers manoeuvring the road pose dangers to lives, investments and property in the area in case of any crash.