Lagos: Journey ahead still long (1)

WHEN I cast my mind back, I am still able to remember the old Lagos! A time when Lagos was ruled by military dictatorship prior the advent of democracy in 1999! In those days the city was full of squalor, a city with unending traffic jams, riddled with crime and with little or no private or public investment in infrastructure. The only exceptions to this were the privileged areas of the city such as Ikoyi, Victoria Island and Ikeja GRA.

If one considers the Lagos of today, there is no doubt that democracy has been very kind to the city. There are large districts of the city where the road infrastructure has significantly improved (Yaba, Victoria Island, Ikoyi, Surulere, and Lagos Island to mention a few). The traffic situation is also much better than it used to be, despite the fact that there are certainly more cars on the roads now than 10-15 years ago. LASTMA, despite its many shortcomings and the improving road network have a big hand in this! The security situation has also improved in leaps and bounds with much more visible security presence around the city – in fact, I am made aware that there hasn’t been a bank robbery in the city in over five years. Lagos continues to impress with its commercial nature with many banks, eateries, malls, fashion houses, sophisticated furniture makers, estate developers and associated activities, business complexes and more having sprung up at a rapid pace over the last decade and a half or so, providing much needed jobs for the young, semi-skilled and skilled workforce of Lagos. It is therefore not in doubt that Lagos has made remarkable progress since the advent of democracy.

Lagos also needs a new vision or strategy in the area of urban planning. This is an area where Lagos needs urgent attention (the whole country to be honest!). The city has lost all manner of form or shape. Virtually every building in Lagos is a shop, business concern or company.

However, despite the fact that the city has come a long way, the road ahead is still a long one. There are still a number of “roadblocks” to maneuver; a lot of improvements to make to enable Lagos take that leap forward to the next level and be considered as a serious mega city. It is the seeming inability of Lagos to move to this next level that the city is still categorised as a virtual hell hole by foreign media, regardless of the visible strides that have been made. Lagos, it seems, has been able to achieve the basic stuff – the kind of things that are really no brainers- construction of roads, hospitals, schools etc. What Lagos needs now is more of the implementation of the finer details. The sort of things that require a bit more thought and intellectualism, where causes and effects are analysed and linkages made between one thing and the impact on the other.

One of such areas – in my view- revolves around the ability of the government to consciously improve the level of productivity of the citizens of Lagos. One of such measures of productivity is the ability to traverse the city in predictable times. Driving in Lagos is still too unpredictable. Similar journeys can take you 10 minutes, 30 minutes, one hour and sometimes two hours depending on the day of the week and time of the day. Admittedly, there is rush hour traffic and what not, but this is simply unacceptable for a city of the status of Lagos! It is even more unacceptable when one considers that the primary causes for this are factors that are totally within the control of the government. A huge amount of traffic in Lagos is still caused by the indiscipline of commercial bus and taxi drivers and for some odd reasons, it appears this is a cancer that Lagos cannot deal with. Yes, there have been pockets of success at Oshodi where street traders have been cleared and the road opened up to free flow of traffic, but this zero tolerance for indiscipline has to be city wide and pursued with such aggressiveness that even the commercial drivers will have no choice but to realise that the battle is lost and be forced to comply with the rules. A familiar example is this: coming from the international airport and heading into town you will likely be hit with traffic. Almost 100 per cent of the time, the traffic is caused by commercial drivers stopping at the entrance to Ajao Estate for passengers to disembark or board their vehicles! Once you pass this point, the traffic clears. This is a very obvious bottleneck that even the blind can see, yet the city of Lagos is unable to deal with it. This is a scenario that plays out across the city on a daily basis. It’s so simple- -deal with the poor driving habits of commercial drivers and you go a very long way towards improving traffic in Lagos.

Lagos also needs a new vision or strategy in the area of urban planning. This is an area where Lagos needs urgent attention (the whole country to be honest!). The city has lost all manner of form or shape. Virtually every building in Lagos is a shop, business concern or company. There is no such thing as residential or commercial districts anymore. The whole city is simply a blur! The Lekki axis is always my classic case study. The Lekki corridor is the newest part of Lagos and there was a great opportunity to get Lekki right. I recall there was some fanfare about a Lekki master plan some years ago. Sadly, this effort has failed! If such a document exists, it’s obviously been thrown to the dogs because Lekki once again, like the rest of Lagos, is already a failing, if not totally failed corridor. Like the rest of Lagos, virtually every building that is not within one of the many estates in that axis is commercially inclined. I recall 10 years ago, Admiralty way in Lekki phase one was almost 100% residential, now it is almost 100 per cent commercial.

To be continued.
Akintoye wrote from Lagos State.