It was like a Christmas gift. Two days to Christmas, Governor Dapo Abiodun drove through Lagos – Abeokuta Road to Ota, Ogun State, to inspect two roads being done at Osi Ota to link AIT Road and Ikola, Lagos State.
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One of the roads – Osi Ota/AIT Road – was 95 percent completed while the other – Osi Ota/Ikola Road – was about 80 percent. Residents trooped out at the sound of siren announcing the governor’s visit.
Within minutes of the convoy’s arrival and Abiodun stepping down from his Mercedes Benz G-Wagon, a crowd of residents had gathered and you could see the excitement on their faces. The expression on their faces was like “thank you Mr Governor for easing our pains trying to connect Lagos”.
To say the least, before Abiodun embarked on the road rehabilitation work, it had been hell for the residents connecting Lagos less than 10 kilometres away. Even though the Lagos ends, through the Osi Ota axis, had been tarred by the Ambode administration more than one year ago earlier, the Ogun ends were simply impassable.
The Ogun ends were at best death traps and at worst gullies.
So it was understandable if the residents were trooping out to welcome the governor who had removed the death traps and gullies from the two roads.
Now they can, as soon as the two roads are open, link Lagos without problems. Significantly, Osi Ota-AIT, Osi Ota-Ikola Roads are only two of the roads Abiodun started across Ogun on his assumption of office on May 29, 2019.
Roads across the state had been dilapidated before he was sworn-in and the natural response for a progressive governor that he is, is to do something to, not only ease the pains of residents fast, but also to facilitate commercial activities between Lagos and Ogun states. Remember there are a thousand and one factories operating in Ogun but whose market is in Lagos…and because of the bad state of the Lagos – Abeokuta Road, especially at the Sango-Ota toll gate, leading to traffic jam of monumental proportion, residents and business operators in Ota have learnt to find alternative routes to connect Lagos.
Osi Ota-AIT and Osi Ota-Ikola Roads, ordinarily, should have provided the alternatives the moment Ambode fixed the Lagos ends of both roads more than year ago but the impassable state of the Ogun roads didn’t allow that to happen. It took Abiodun only four months to do both roads as work did not start until around August 2019, only three months after assuming office.
The roads are part of the governor’s initiative to fix two roads in each local governor area of Ogun as part of the efforts to rapidly develop infrastructure in the state. The initiative is definitely paying off. After Abiodun’s inspection visit to the two construction sites in Ota about 48 hours to Christmas, Osi Ota – AIT Road is now open to traffic, leaving Osi Ota – Ikola Road which is nearly completed and may also be open to traffic any moment from now.
The residents are appreciative of the governor’s efforts to remove all impediments to vehicular traffic in the Ota-Lagos axis as one of them said, “Governor Dapo Abiodun is God-sent. We suffered untold hardship while the bad state of Osi Ota-AIT, Osi Ota-Ikola Roads lasted. Lagos – Abeokuta Road through Sango-Ota toll gate was a no-go area because of the traffic snarl at the toll gate occasioned by the craters on the road and the unruly behaviour of commercial bus drivers who park indiscriminately to pick and drop passengers, and thereby impede traffic flow.
“With the two roads done by Mr Governor, you can now drive to Lagos and back in record time. We thank God for using Governor Dapo Abiodun for making this happen”.
But like Oliver Twist, Ota residents are asking for more rehabilitation of roads in the area. The bad state of Sango Ota-Idiroko Road, for instance, is a source of worry to them. Apart from the fact that the road is broken at several points, this, combined with poor traffic control, causes traffic jam in the axis.
Among parts of the road severely damaged, according to the residents, is the Obasanjo and Iyana-Iyesi section. But the most problematic part of the road is Ojuore where there is a roundabout connecting Iganmode and there is nearby Ilogbo junction. Being an international road linking Republic of Benin through Idiroko, and with the multiplicity of industrial concerns on that axis, the road is notorious for trucks carrying goods for different reasons.
Add the trucks to the hundreds of private and commercial vehicles plying the road, Ojuore is a typical traffic chaos most of the time as it is usually locked down by vehicles entering the road from Lagos through Osi Ota and Iganmode, trucks and other vehicles heading to and fro Sango Idiroko and Agbara and those trying to join Ilogbo Road but slowed down by potholes at the entrance.
An overhead bridge would have been appropriate to resolve the traffic chaos at Ojuore but that can only happen on the long run because of the huge capital outlay.
But in the short run, residents are begging Abiodun to consider the rehabilitation of the bypass from Obasanjo area of the Sango-Idiroko Road to Osi Ota such that motorists heading to Lagos from Idiroko, Atan-Ota and other communities in that axis don’t have to get to Ojuore before exiting that road.
All they need to do is branch off at Obasanjo and link Osi Ota and enter Lagos. Residents want the governor to consider the rehabilitation of the Obasanjo-Osi Ota Road in his next round of roads rehabilitation.
On scale, however, the residents believe that Abiodun’s rehabilitation of Osi Ota-AIT, Osi Ota-Ikola Roads is a sign of good things to come in the neighbourhood.
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And the public works bureau that the governor has put in place to ease the cost of road rehabilitation across the state will do the magic after this round of two roads per local government.
Vanguard