Ayodele Olalere
Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State has vowed to name and shame individuals and corporate organisations behind the Apapa gridlock if such ones attempt to sabotage the latest efforts of the state to rid the Apapa axis of traffic.
The governor talked tough, on Wednesday, while officially handling over the reconfigured roundabouts on Lekki-Ajah expressway to ease traffic on the road.
The roundabouts were the Abraham Adesanya, Lekki first and second gates.
Governor Sanwo-Olu said the e-call-up system adopted by the state government which began on Monday, March 1, has helped to remove presence of articulated vehicles on the Apapa axis and free the corridor of age-long traffic which has paralysed business activities in the area.
He said the government was not going back on its determination to free Apapa of gridlock, warning that any individual, security agency, corporate organisations that attempt to cause traffic on the axis will be named and shamed.
“We gave a commitment that we will do everything possible to solve the gridlock problem of Apapa. Yes, you can say that it is taking us a year because we need to have a concerted effort.
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“We need to work a lot from the background, and you remember that there was a first Presidential Task Force that was there, so we needed to unbundled that and take it up.
“But beyond that, we needed to collaborate with a lot stakeholders on that corridor,” Governor Sanwo-Olu said.
“NPA being number one stakeholder that is working with us, Federal Ministry of Transportation, all of the maritime operators, the unions that are in that corridor.
“What we are seeing is the beginning of a lasting solution that we have brought to Apapa.
“Our appeal is that we are not out of it completely yet, this is a taste of the pudding they say is in the eating. Our citizens has seen that what used to caused two to three hours can indeed take fifteen to twenty minutes for them to commune.
“We have seen that when we work together, we can solve our problem internally. We have seen that indeed this can happen in our clime and environment.
“Obviously, what we are doing now is that we have taken the unscrupulous people who have been benefiting from the gridlock, we have take whatever it is they are earning from them and we know they will want to fight back.
“I am facing the camera now that we will not stop at anything to ensure that anybody that tries to retract and take us back to where we are coming from on the gridlock on Apapa, we will do everything that we have to fight those people.
“We will name and shame them, we will bring out their names, be it a corporate organisation, company, police officer, Lagos State officer, be it a union that will say that solution that we have brought about will not work, they will go and answer to the citizens of Nigeria and Lagos.
“We will bring them to the public court for them to see that we are about seriousness.
“We cannot condole the recklesness and carelessness that our citizens have gone through,” Governor Sanwo-Olu warned.
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Continuing, the governor said that, “I want to use this opportunity to commend the Mananging Director of Nigeria Ports Authority, NPA, because they have worked with us on this agenda.
“My appeal is to others who have not signed on to this wonderful call up system that we have embarked upon.
“I want to call most of the big transport logistics companies, I am not calling their names because they have done anything wrong, but I want them to collaborate with us.
“SIFAX, I want you to come because we know you have huge numbers of trailers, Dangote, Flour Mills, Tunde Folawiyo, and others, let us have a system that our citizens will be proud of and that’s the real reason we are in government.”
“We will stop at nothing because our guys will be working to ensure there are no surprises on the road.
“I want to say to our citizens that these are just one of our modest attempt to ensure that what we promised which is to solve transportation and traffic solutions in Lagos and we do it well.
“We are going to put resources there and ensure that whatever that we need to do to continue make Apapa free and flow, we will do it and do it well,” the governor concluded.
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The state’s Commissioner for Transportation, Dr. Frederic Oladeinde, in his welcome address at the beginning of Governor Sanwo-Olu’s administration, said 60 traffic gridlocks areas were identified for reconfiguration and remodelling of some of the existing roundabouts.
He said the roundabouts could no longer cope with the current volume of vehicles that ply them, which necessitated their reconfiguration.
Oladeinde added six major junctions and roundabouts improvement projects have been successfully completed with three already delivered for public use which were Allen Avenue, Maryland Junction and Ikotun roundabouts.
In the words of Oladeinde, “Since the completion of these junction/Roundabout Improvement projects, we have noticed significant improvement in traffic management along these corridors, commuters travel time is saved, while the usual traffic gridlocks have reduced considerably,” he said.
