Battling burden of bad roads in Ejigbo

Alimosho area of Lagos State is peculiar for many reasons: it has the largest concentration of Lagosians, but it is most often in the news for the wrong reasons, because it is jinxed with the highest number of despicable roads in the Centre of Excellence. Ejigbo Local Council Development Area (LCDA) carries a sizeable brunt of this burden and residents have for years suffered untold hardship commuting from their homes to other parts of Lagos.

It took Governor Akinwunmi Ambode’s unscheduled visit to the Ejigbo-Ikotun Road in July for residents to heave a sigh of relief over the infamous Iyana-Ejigbo bottleneck of pain. Those residing in Ejigbo and Ikotun, who ply through the Ejigbo-Ikotun Road daily, have had to spend several hours in suffocating traffic with big potholes, which constituted death trap to motorists.

From morning, afternoon and evening the story is the same- tale of woes. Despite the outcry of residents, past governments in the state could not come to their rescue, until the governor directed the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Works, Mr. Paul Bamgboye-Martins and the General Manager, Lagos State Public Works Corporation (LSPWC), Mr. Ayotunde Sodeinde, to commence work immediately on the route.

With the major artery road currently undergoing needed rehabilitation, attention is shifting to the inner-city roads for some measure of rescue operation to be carried out on some important but long abandoned roads. That is the task that has engaged the Executive Secretary of Ejigbo LCDA, Mr. Jaiye Alabi, since his appointment in January.

In a recent chat with The Guardian, the council boss said the highlight of his brief administration has been about solving problems and tackling issues that border on development.
“One of the major issue is the road infrastructure. There are no good road networks within Ejigbo and since I resumed in January this year, we have been able to try our best to ameliorate the suffering of our people. We have graded 28 roads within the LCDA, even though they are hard grading, which are liable to damage once there is rain. But it’s been a lot better than what we met.

In addition, we have done 18 culvert, which have linked up the network of roads and it is now easier for people to move around the communities. Presently, we are embarking on various projects like the ongoing rehabilitation of Moshalashi Street. We have also listed some critical roads we are forwarding to the state, which is beyond the capacity of the council, for them to take action on.”

Ajayi noted that long before the governor’s intervention on Iyana-Ejigbo, the road was a sore thumb that negatively spotlighted the area. “When I came in, I did a lot of palliative measures on the road like dumping about 100 truckload of laterite on the bad spots; but our efforts were always frustrated by the rains, which drains the stone base away. I, however, thank the governor immensely for heeding to our cry for help on that road.

There is a road in Goloba Ashogbon that was a completely bad road. In fact, it was almost turning into a river. But within three weeks that we came in, we were able to rescue the road and make it passable. From Lafenwa to Dauda Illo, we have graded some roads up to Idowu Olabisi. We intend working on Ifoshi from Iyana Ejigbo down to Alaba Street to link Idimu Road,” he added.

On the issue of health, especially maternal and child health, we are reconstructing the health centre at Lafenwa. Its about 70 percent stage of completion. There is also a road in front of the centre, Moshalashi street, which we have start reconstructing, starting with the drainage.

Its been a pleasant experience because I came from a grassroots background. I retired from the local government service, it is easy for me to blend.

In Ailegun Bucknor area, there is a reconstruction of the police station going on there. It is one of the projects dear to our heart because the new expressway has opened up that place, which needs adequate policing to preempt the security issues that might arise as a result of that development. In the area of education, we distributed some desks and chairs to schools and during the long vacation, we engaged on free summer coaching for all pupils in the LCDA. We also bought some GCE forms for some indigent students within the community.

Since we resume, we have been making efforts to interface with the Lagos State Fire Service and we are in communication on how the fire station could be put to its best use in the area of training personnel and having a fire truck.

The jetty project is already completed but of course you know the issue of maritime services falls within the purview of the federal and state government. We are working on how to discuss with the relevant agencies so that the project will not be stalled. Dredging of the canal is beyond our jurisdiction as a local council but on our part we are ready to kick off the project with the support of relevant agencies.
We are embarking on a lot of advocacy for our people to really appreciate the reason why they should pay their rates, levies and taxes. I appeal to our people to faithfully pay their rates so we can serve them better. We are working hard to improve our IGR but it has not been easy I must confess, especially to change our people’s attitude. They want development but don’t want to sacrifice for it.

One of our biggest challenges is people not trying to comply with our laws especially on environment. We will continue to de-silt the drainages but people still continue to throw waste into it. And once there is rain, it causes some flooding. We are doing some advocacy in this regard for our people to desist from this habit and keep their environment clean.
I want my legacy to be a transparent development of Ejigbo community. I run an open administration and every staff of the council has key into that to build a virile institution of service to the people.