Following the temporary removal of barriers on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and the attendant free flow of traffic on the highway, the chairman, of Lagos State Council, Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), Mr Adeleye Ajayi, has commended the Federal Government for action.
Ajayi, in an interview on Friday, urged road users to extol the authorities on the seamless movement now experienced on the highway.
He said: “I drove through the highway this morning and the road was free. Even the usual gridlock on the Long Bridge has disappeared,”
Ajayi thanked President Muhammadu Buhari, the Minister for Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola and his engineers for being sensitive to the plight of Nigerians to re-open the highway to accommodate Yuletide travels.
He said that people had a harrowing experience on the highway in the past due to the loss of man-hours but the current reality of seamless movement was good and should be sustained.
Ajayi appealed to the Federal Government to utilise the dry season to meet its newly set completion deadline of March 2023 on the highway ahead of the rains in April.
A commercial bus driver, Kingsley Amadi, who plies the Ojodu Berger to Magboro route, said before the re-opening of the highway to traffic, transporters charged N500.00 or more for the short journey because of the gridlock.
“Because of the hold up we used to calculate our time and fuel, that was why we charged high fares but now it is different,” he said.
Mrs Gloria Faisal, a resident of Sparklight Estate, OPIC, Gloria Faisal said the re-opening has given her the courage to drive on the highway again.
Faisal said she stopped driving on the highway for over 10 months because of traffic congestion and robbery attacks as a result of construction works and reckless driving.
“I resorted to taking commercial motorcycles and vehicles when I could not cope. One day I spent seven hours in traffic, it was easier because I was not the one driving but now I am happy, as you can see, I am driving myself,” she said.
A fruit merchant in Mowe, Malam Abdullahi Inuwa, extolled the Federal Government, stressing that the free flow of traffic Is positively impacting businesses.
According to him, he could now freely move between various markets in Lagos and Ogun to restock.
Other commuters, also thanked President Buhari, Fashola and his team and appealed for the timely completion of the project because of the high volume of traffic on the road.
Recall that the Federal Ministry of Works, on Monday, removed barriers on Section one of the highway, which spans from Ojota in Lagos to Sagamu Interchange to improve traffic days, three days ahead of its scheduled removal.
The removal of the barriers used to narrow lanes in the highway, followed the suspension of reconstruction works on the OPIC axis of the expressway till January, to ease traffic flow during the festive period.
