By Pelumi Adewale Oyinlola
In Ikorodu area of Lagos, residents are groaning. The Igbogbo-Bayeku Road, which links two major communities as well as many other lesser known ones in the area, is in a state of extreme disrepair.
Motorists and other commuters, as well as those living or doing business in the area, are full of lamentations.
With over a million residents living in each of the two major communities, the road is in a terrible shape, especially in areas such as Banjoko, Oreta, Offin, Agunfoye, Unity, Macaulay, Bayeku Road, Igbogbo, Community, Selewu, Lajo, Fashola Estate Road and many others.
Motorist and business owners have been lamenting on the deplorable state of the road. Traders and business owners claim that sales have been affected, as customers are relocating from the area in droves. Transport fares have tripled. Vehicle owners say they spend more time and money repairing their vehicles.
Commercial bus drivers have relocated from the area in their numbers, just as many shop owners have also abandoned their shops. Residents are also devastated over the deplorable state of the road, as they find it very difficult to go out in their vehicles.
Mrs Mustapha Tasirat, a hair stylist told Saturday Sun: “The road is affecting businesses badly. Even people with shops are not enjoying their shops at all, because the road is very bad. It slows business down a lot. Myself and other people have been forced to close down our shops because people were not patronising us, especially when it rains. That is another problem of its own. People hardly come out to buy things. Even we, the traders, can’t leave our homes because of the flood that must have filled the road. I live around here, but I was forced to close down my shop because people were not coming to patronise me. Customers were not forthcoming because of the bad state of the road. We need the government to help us fix the road so life can be easy for those who have decided to stay”.
A commercial driver, Saheed Alade, said he had to change his route to Ebute Road. He lampooned the chairman of the local council development area (LCDA) who he said demolished the park for road transport workers. He said the fares were increased because of the bad roads in the area.
Another motorist, Salami Bashir AKA Baba, lamented: “I am tired of the road. I am already a regular customer in my mechanic’s place because of the bad road, especially when it rains. The floodwater will rush inside the vehicle, and if care is not taken, the car can stop in the middle of the water. Fares are now increasing and because of that, we don’t get as many customers as we did before. The government should please help us.”
Praise Glamour, a businesswoman who operates a beauty salon, said: “I moved out of my shop in Bayeku because I wasn’t getting enough customers. I need more customer base because I am not getting enough in my current store and I run my business online as well so I am looking to move to a location where I can get a wider customer base.”
Joy Nwoko, a trader, said she had to move her wares to Benson part of Ikorodu all because of the bad road. “That road dealt with me and my family,” she said. “I sell clothes, so they don’t really move in that area and when the rain falls, the water will enter my shop and drench all the clothes in the shop. I was wearing some of my clothes myself because I could not sell such, all thanks to what the rain did. We have complained several times but nothing has happened. I had to move my shop away from there and now I am enjoying where I am staying. Our chairman should please do something about the road before it is too late”
Mrs Shola Apapa, a super mart owner, also recounted her experience in the area. “I packed into Bayeku years ago with three cars in my compound. But as I am talking to you, I don’t have any one that is functioning well. It is not as if I sold them or my village people took them from me, but it is the road that spoilt all my cars and I now use okada or keke as my means of transportation to get to my store. I spent almost all my profit on car repairs.”
A businessman and CEO of Ken Sora Water, Oraeki Ejike, also spoke of the effects of the bad road on his business.
“My sachet water business is being run in Bayeku here, and the road is extremely bad. I am currently a cabinet member of the CDA in Odumade, in Macaulay area. Two months ago, we contributed money to buy sand to fill the potholes on the road, but the rains swept everything away. On the Igbogbo/Bayeku Road, what I can say is that human beings should not be plying such roads. The money we spend to repair our cars and trucks cannot be recuperated. I am appealing to the government to at least do something about the road even if they cannot award a full contract. Palliatives should be done, such as a drainage system where water can flow freely when it rains. They should also fill potholes so cars can pass freely. That road is a nightmare. The local government is not responsible enough to face their challenges because they don’t do follow-up when necessary. There was a time palliatives were done on the road when the Lagos State governor came to launch the housing scheme. They had to disguise so the governor wouldn’t see how bad the road was. What a shame! Shortly after, the road went bad again.”
Madam Patience, who owns and operates the Lady P Canteen, noted: “You can see for yourself the state of this road. I heard the chairman lives at Magodo, so he doesn’t go through things like these. I own a canteen, but for days, I have not been able to open my shop because of the rain. Where my shop is, is nothing to write home about when it rains. The reason I closed it for now is because there was a period when rain fell nonstop, and I had only five customers after cooking rice, spaghetti, beans and the rest. I had to keep warming the food, and I resold it the next day. But even at that, I still didn’t finish selling it. My sales girl ended up pouring more than half of the food away. Something needs to be done about this road before it chases homeowners away from their houses.”
In his reaction, Chairman of Igbogbo/Bayeku LCDA, Comrade Olusesan Daini, said the road could not be repaired by the LCDA but the state.
“To upgrade the road is far above the capability of the local government. The state government has decided to take it up and they are seriously working on it. In the last two years, I have done so many palliatives on the road and the reason why it doesn’t last is because people have built on natural waterways. People have built houses and shops on these places so the water does not have anywhere to flow to then it comes back to the road and that’s the reason we have these bad roads.
“Now, for that road to be constructed to last long, some houses must go. These houses are the ones built without government approval and the houses that will be demolished are the ones built on places that water is supposed to flow through.”
He stated that the state government had started doing a major drainage construction in some areas, noting that the drainage is built to channel water down to the original canal.
“The road has the attention of the state government, but the people who complain are those who have built on places they should not build on. The state government has started working, houses that are encroaching have been marked and the drainages are being built. You know these things take time and people will have to be given time to move before anything can be done. So we are taking all these into consideration,” he said.
The chairman denied knowledge of the alleged increase in transport fares, but he promised to investigate it and call the commercial transport operators to order.