Lagos to begin clampdown on roadside traders, mechanics

The Lagos State Environmental Sanitation Corps (LAGESC) has affirmed its readiness to implement all the relevant laws aimed at achieving a cleaner, hygienic, aesthetically respondent environment through total conformity with the state’s Environmental Protection Law 2017. LAGESC is the erstwhile Kick Against Indiscipline (KAI) brigade.

Executive Secretary, LAGESC, Idowu Mohammed, disclosed this yesterday, saying part of the agency’s function is to monitor and maintain surveillance along the highway, streets and public amenities as well as to report regularly any breach of the provision of the environmental laws to the appropriate enforcement authorities.
   
Mohammed stressed that the present administration has directed LAGESC officials to begin immediate clamp down on all violators of environmental sanitation laws in the state.

Emphasizing on the risks associated with neglecting the use of pedestrian bridges, this she said impedes free flow of traffic as well as unnecessary loss of lives as a result of hit-and-run by the motorists. She noted that the distance from the pedestrian bridges where arrests can be made by LAGESC officers against erring pedestrians is pegged at 200 metres.
 
She also decried the increase in trading activities on major roads and bus stops, hawking, illegal activities by road side mechanics, abandoned vehicles, illegal structures on drainages, selling and cooking of food on roads/sidewalks, stressing that all these, constitute a nuisance and traffic gridlock on the roads.
   
This is coming two days after the governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, approved the appointment of CP Akinpelu Gbemisola, a retired commissioner of police as the new corps marshal of LAGESC. Gbemisola, a graduate of history and international relations from Lagos State University Ojo (LASU) started her career as a cadet inspector in the Nigerian Police Force in 1984. She later served the force in several capacities including Head, Criminal Central Registry, Alagbon, Lagos, Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of Administration, Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Abuja, Commissioner of Police, Inspectorate, Directorate of Training, Force Headquarters, Abuja and Commandant, Police College, Ikeja, where she retired.

Meanwhile, Lagos residents, and a lawmaker, Jude Idimogu, have appealed to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu to construct a pedestrian bridge at the Toyota bus stop, on Oshodi-Apapa Expressway. Idimogu, a two-term lawmaker representing Oshodi/Isolo Constituency II at the Lagos State House of Assembly, yesterday said the bridge, linking to the popular Ladipo auto spare parts market, had become important to save the lives of citizens in the area.

Idimogu also mentioned that the bridge has been approved as part of the already inaugurated expansion work on the Murtala Muhammed Expressway to the International Airport. “I just want to use this medium to appeal to the current governor, since governance is continual, to ensure the construction of the critical pedestrian bridge at Toyota bus stop. The former governor promised to start and complete the pedestrian bridge as part of the Oshodi and Airport Road reconstruction. The kind of accidents and human lives that are lost in the area makes the bridge crucial,” he said.

The lawmaker said the bridge was supposed to be delivered after the completion of the expansion of the Murtala Muhammed Expressway. Idimogu said since the inauguration of the road, the contractor had left the site, without any sign of project commencement.

Also speaking, Mrs. Nimota a trader in the axis, urged the state government to put another pedestrian bridge in the area, which is densely populated and busy. “By the time the Apapa-Oshodi expressway rehabilitation is concluded with the high road median in place, it would be a very risky affair crossing the highway.”

The absence of a pedestrian bridge has also been blamed for the incessant accidents at the Agric bus stop in Ikorodu. According to Otunba Mojeed, a trader at Agric Market, government needs to urgently build an over-head bridge or bumps on that axis to address the accident menace. “The structure of that road is not good and its downward slope nature results in brake failure for careless drivers.”