hardex
As at today, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode would have spent just 78 days, out of 1,460 days in the Round House, Alausa. He seems to be undertaking a lot of lessons on the operations of government. That he has also not constituted his cabinet, like President Buhari, three months after, shows that he is also taking his time, endeavouring to ensure that all interests are taken care of in the cabinet that he will announce.
However, beyond the frequent commiseration with accident victims in the state, Gov Ambode appears to have commenced governance.
One major instance is the near relief drivers and commuters in/to Apapa have been experiencing.
I have been away on a short vacation. But I returned this week to see Ijora bridge—leading to Apapa, cleared of the chains of trailers and tankers that make life a little more brutish.
Reason: Gov Ambode has flogged them into line. I noticed almost six security agencies, fully armed, manning every stretch of the road, keeping the reckless and mindless trailer drivers in check.
At least, one can now drive into and out of Apapa with minimal heartache. All thanks to the taskforce constituted by Gov Ambode after he met with stakeholders in the district including tank farm owners. There is some sense of discipline now.
But has the governor visited Apapa again in the last one month? The roads are terribly bad. With the rains, they simply got worse, what with deep pot holes and craters, many of which make the same trailers to fall at will and thus constitute the huge traffic mess that the taskforce is meant to contain.
The argument that the roads are Federal Government owned will mean little here. Resurfacing the roads will save lives and reduce the torture of driving on the roads.
But talking about the state of the roads will be another thematic discourse in Lagos. Yes, the former government of Babatunde Fashola built quite a number of roads, but the fact remains that the inner roads in Lagos are a huge apology. No neighbourhood is spared this malaise. They are really so bad that even temporary palliatives at the moment will offer a big relief.
But if the bad roads are a huge burden, the troubling menace of the Okada riders (many of whom are obvious escapees from the north east insurgency) are a greater yoke.
The commercial motor cyclists were once banned from certain roads in the state. But because of election, the Fashola government silently suspended the law banning the Okada riders. Today, they have returned in a vengeful force and the Orthopaedic wards are back in full swing business. Perhaps if a ban now is sustained, it will be relaxed again by 2019 when another general election is afoot.
For Heaven’s sake, can the Lagos State Government be firm and consistent on this policy? It is bad enough that a mega city like Lagos is harangued, at every turn, by a horde of barely literate Okada riders, even on highways, running against traffic, yet it is ironically worse that such a city bears the epithet of Centre of Excellence. What type of excellence can that ever be?
That is a big question for us all.
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