The Rape of Lagos

Joel Nwokeoma

The other day, I had a bitter first-hand experience of the rapacious rape of Lagos by its minders these past years. Recently, I made a post on my Facebook wall on how a close friend who arrived Lagos after some years overseas and sought a lunch date with me could not make it because they were holed and held up in an ensnaring gridlock on the Lagos Island. They told me they stood stuck for three godly hours without moving out of anywhere and lamented they never knew the "collapse of Lagos was this total".

In a comment on the thread, a dear childhood buddy, Dare Taiwo, rationalised that the lingering gridlock in the metropolis was informed by the exponential population growth of the state, a reason that flies in the face of reality.

Eventually, the lunch date was scuppered, sadly so.

This particular Sunday, as observed in the opening paragraph, I had a better forgotten experience, a lived experience of residents of the state, from Aboru to Ajah, Idimu to Ikorodu, anyway, when I sought to visit a relative in the Bucknor Estate off Jakande Estate area of the state. A journey of less than 30 minutes lasted for 3 hours 30 minutes. All that was needed was to drive through Ajao Estate through Chivita Drive/ Canoe Bridge to Iyana Ejigbo then connect Bucknor Estate through Ronik Polytechnic. But driving out of my estate that Sunday afternoon was hellish. The whole area was blocked. No road. It had nothing to do with population, it had everything to do with collapsed road infrastructure across the state. I don't want to recount the trauma I had when I mistakingly drove to the CBN Quarters in Satellite Town through the now satanic Lagos-Badagry expresshell sometime ago.

Being conversant with the area, I turned to go through Aswani, yet no headway. I turned and went through the similarly collapsed Oshodi-Apapa pathway, but couldn't move beyond Ilasa as the shambolic repairs on that side of the road impeded free movement. I detoured to Hassan Street, Ilasa to connect Taiwo Street to hit Godwin Omonua in Isolo so as to join Ago Roundabout and drive to Oke Afa bridge. That was to be my greatest undoing. The whole area was a collapsed hell. An hour was lost in one corner because youths of the area resorted to helping fill the crater at an intersection because the Lagos State Government was missing in action.

Eventually, I was lucky to move away from the hell. On driving to Ago through Apata Memorial, you encounter craters that can swallow vehicles. But they pale in insignificance to those on Okota road leading to Oke Afa. How did the govt at all levels allow this heist to take place? Ironically, billboards of politicians who promised heaven and earth to the electorate during the last electoral ritual filled the space on either side of the road.

From Oke Afa to Jakande gate through NNPC road to Bucknor is better not spoken. Impassable. Shamefully, the Ejigbo LCDA headquarters lies by the side of the collapsed road, helplessly and uselessly.

My ordeal during a visit to Ijegun area of the state inspired a write-up entitled, The Road to Ijagemo, an op-ed piece published in The PUNCH, on October 25, 2018. You can read it via this link: https://punchng.com/the-road-to-ijagemo/. At another time, my experience as I battled to save the life of a preterm in the same Lagos was captured in another op-ed titled, An account of a premie's battle for survival. See link: https://punchng.com/an-account-of-a-preemies-battle-for-survival/.

Incidentally, Lagos is the richest state in Nigeria and as they boast amongst the largest economies in Africa. But it's among the most unliveable places on earth. What happened to Lagos resources? It's one rape we also need to beam our searchlight on. Rape na Rape, with all due respect.

Last year, the Lagos State Government under Akinwunmi Ambode boasted it had recorded "gradual improvement in our average monthly IGR compared to the levels achieved in previous years due to the impact of ongoing reforms and growth in the state’s economy." Based on the first quarter results, it admittedly achieved an average monthly IGR of N34billion in 2018 compared to monthly averages of N22bn, N24bn and N30bn in 2015, 2016 and 2017 respectively. It set a target of N50bn by 2020 but disclosed it got another stream of income of N327m in 2017 and 2018 as 13% derivation revenue from the Federal Government as an oil producing state. So, it is obvious money is not a problem for Lagos, as a former Nigerian leader was famed to have said in the 70s.

The new governor of the state, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has tasked the state's traffic management agency, LASTMA, to magically stop traffic from the roads and quickly signed an executive order to that effect. His first official duty on assumption of office in May. He followed it up by increasing the salaries of the traffic managers by 100%. Draconian measures have been displayed by the operatives in the new spirit. But the weightier matter of reconstructing and fixing the decayed roads across the state were not dealt with despatch. Arresting a car on account of not being roadworthy on roads that by themselves aren't deserving of the cars in the first instance is unjust, methinks.

Strikingly, the existential realities and infrastructure on the ground in Lagos belie the state's humongous financial status. Why is this so? Public schools and hospitals aren't better off either. So, why should critical infrastructure be in this lamentable state in a supposedly centre of excellence awash with money? Why is there no debate about fiscal management in a state like Lagos governed by the same party for the last 20 years by those who live herein? Why is Lagos such a misgoverned space decaying side by side its growing wealth? It is obvious Lagos is being raped loudly without anyone raising a whimper.

This rape must stop. It's one rape too much!