Freekick

I visited Lagos a couple of days ago and was confronted with the orgy of traffic jams that have reduced man-hours to about four hours if the skies are bright. From the Ikeja airport axis, it was easily discernible that Lagos is in utter crisis and traffic madness.

Apart from commuters bemoaning the increasingly bad traffic situation, business men and women are tellingly apprehensive about their dwindling fortunes because the time to do good business is gradually being eaten up by the endless delays on Lagos roads and routes.

Lagos has assumed one huge city that is stuck in the ever growing and worsening traffic situation. There are motions but no movements. Along the roads networks are long, almost endless queues of vehicles struggling to reach one destination or the other.

The closure of the Third Mainland Bridge worsened the already bad situation. All of a sudden, the critics of General Babangida found the third mainland bridge as important as the life wire of business across the mainland. How can the third Mainland Bridge be relevant to Lagos? I asked myself this rhetorical question against the backdrop of the total condemnation of General Babangida, former Military president , by Lagos axis revisionist critics who have chosen to feign ignorance of the achievements of this armoured General for a number of self serving reasons. Thank God the has been re-opened for traffic.

When the Federal Government through the Ministry of Transport announced government’s intention to carry out repairs on the ever busy road, the Lagos State government showed its resentment over that declaration. Trying to extract a commitment from Federal Government on account of the federalist status of the Nigerian nation, the hard working Lagos Governor, had to resolve what would have been a stalemate by agreeing on the pattern which the repairs would take, so that business in Lagos would not grind to a halt.

That was understandable as it was responsive of a government that is people-driven. But something struck me almost immediately work was about to commence. Newspapers headlines narrated the agonies which road users had to face and contend with in trying to get to work. Lagosians, the newspapers reported, groaned as the third mainland bridge was being partially closed down to enable the repairs commence.

Some of the road users that were interviewed expressed the untoward hardship they face in trying to get to work everyday and the traffic logjam which the action has created as a multiplier effect of the bridge closure. Just imagine if the entire Bridge is permanently closed down or if it ceases to exist? In the midst of this wailing, the thought of IBB overwhelmed my consciousness. If only critics would appreciate the vision and wisdom behind the construction of the Third Mainland Bridge by this leader of men, who though governed this country as Military President, but simply overwhelmed majority by his futuristic projects and programmes. Take away Third Mainland Bridge, and what you have is anarchy in Lagos. People will no doubt begin to relocate to other suburbs.

Even now, the thought of catching up with appointments these days in Lagos is as suffocating as a man gasping for breath. It is hellish, utter hellish, no doubt.
This scenario has brought a few thoughts racing in my inner recesses. If Lagosians got the Third Mainland Bridge as a dividend of Military rule in eight years with all the recriminations, what did they get in eight years of democratic rule with all the attractions? If the Military under the rulership of IBB could deem it fit to think of easing up Lagos traffic by constructing a twelve-kilometer bridge across the Lagoon, what achievement was recorded for a democracy that is pro-people?

At a time during the monstrous regime of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, it was more like engaging in fisticuff with the then Lagos Governor, Bola Tinubu over who should fix Lagos roads on account of their federal status. Service delivery was sacrificed on the altar of greed and egocentric posturing by both Obasanjo and Tinubu. Rather than help Lagos government to improve on its road networks by creating new outlets while fixing existing ones, the Obasanjo administration wickedly withheld the resources that were due to Lagos State well over three years before he finally bowed out of office. If his third term agenda had succeeded, only God knows what would have happened to Lagos State and her over eleven million people. Imagine how lofty it would have been if the master-plan of a fourth Mainland Bridge had come to fruition under the eight years of Chief Aremu Obasanjo.

Even though the Federal Government utterly neglected Lagos State, the performance of the State Government under Tinubu did not help matters either. Apart from the verbosity of Tinubu image launderers who confounded the unsuspecting masses with all manner of conspiracy theories, the Tinubu administration did not simply have answers to the debilitating problems of Lagos State roads; both repairs and construction. And given the pettiness of Obasanjo who promoted personal squabbles to the level of national creed, it was easy escape for Tinubu and his co-travellers to shift the blame to the Federal Government as the reason why he could not ameliorate the state of disrepair of the roads.

When you juxtaposed the out-gone government of Tinubu with that of the Fashola-led administration, ideas wise, they are miles apart. In Fashola’s case, you have a thinking government that is being appreciated by the people at least for provoking initiatives that could help to address the myriad of problems confronting the State on a daily basis. Even if the man is being held captive by the same Tinubu forces that facilitated his election, there is a line of demarcation between performance and intention.

If the potholes on Lagos roads are regularly fixed, if the trailers are removed from the ever busy Apapa roads to a well segmented Park, if special routes are designated for the BRT buses, if the thought of a mega city is being contemplated for Lekki Peninsula axis, it will only be a matter of time for the gains to begin to manifest. Lagos State deserves a peculiar kind of attention because of its peculiar nature.

In the case of Tinubu, hyper attention was given to dilettante details. The amount of money that was expended on campaign against the census figures of Lagos State was enough to commence a fertilizer company that could utilize the wastes in Lagos for the production of other goods and services. I wonder why so much should be invested in asking for more people when the existing facilities could not cater for the existing population.

I have a cause to appreciate IBB for bracing the odds to construct the Lagos Third Mainland Bridge. If IBB had conceded to the resistance which the Lagosians initially gave to the idea of constructing the bridge, no one will be talking about Third Mainland Bridge today. There were all manner of ethnic dimensions into the idea and unhealthy competition between the Lagos Ministry of Transport and that of the Federal over who should oversee the project. As a well focused government that was aware of its place in history and its mission in governance, the IBB government damned all consequences to flag off the commencement of the project. Rather than accord credit to such a thoughtful government that was responsive to the challenges of an urban explosion like the Lagos scenario, short-sighted critics for want of political relevance, would readily conclude that the IBB eight years was a colossal waste.

Now that they are facing the hardship of plying Lagos routes to keep appointments and make business more meaningful as a result of the partial closure of the Third Mainland Bridge, IBB is fondly remembered and celebrated. Thank goodness this is happening during the man’s life time. Those who have sworn never to appreciate IBB for whatever good he did to the nation by way of achievements found this Bridge issue almost inescapable. It easily exposes their jaundiced criticisms as opposed to objective rationalization of their age long resentment against a military government that was truly patriotic to national duty.

As gate keepers of history, opinion moulders, media practitioners, journalists, columnists and commentators should strive to infuse a syringe of correctness into their historical documentation and writings so that occasions such as this would not easily expose their biases. Imagine this scenario again. A critic of IBB was having a swell time on a ride across the third mainland bridge when his phone rang. A journalist had sought to know the critic’s position on the Bakassi debacle and he suddenly digressed to other issues where he had opportunity to lampoon the IBB government. The Journalist had asked out of curiosity where the man was at that material time, and he answered ‘I am just navigating the end of third mainland bridge’.

Ah! the Journalist exclaimed; do you realize that you are on a bridge built by the man you has just taken to the cleaners? And so, he fumed, even as he conceded that the man tried in this respects. “Should I quote you that IBB did well for constructing the Bridge? No, no, no, no. Do you want my followers to accuse me of having been bought over by IBB, he replied. From this, one can imagine that deep in the hearts of those who easily pick on the IBB years; there is no objective basis for their criticisms except that most often they want to dance to mass hysteria and draw conclusions from public pulse.