Lagos-Badagry Expressway: ‘A stressful route’

SIR: The over 55-year-old and about 60 kilometres Lagos-Badagry expressway is one amongst the several Federal Government cum international roads in the country. With the euphoria of its award for reconstruction and expansion to a 10-lane dual carriageway with light rail public transport on the median and a Bus Rapid Transit System that will transform the road to a super highway, expectations were high, everyone kept watch, immeasurable joy and happiness were in the minds of the commuters and residents along the route.

But with the growing rate of despondency by residents and commuters going by what can be described as a “Snail Pace” at which the construction work is going, one will assume, and perhaps certainly conclude that the road will never be completed.

The major construction companies (Julius Berger Nigeria Plc and China Civil Engineering Construction Company) started the first phase in the year 2010 from Orile to Mile 2. But after two years of the uncompleted construction of the first stage, yet the second phase of the construction started in 2012 from Mile 2 to Abule-Ado with demolitions as in the first stage.

Amazingly, the third phase of the construction started with demolition in April 2015 from Abule-Ado to Afromedia junction and suffice to state here that both the first and second stages of the construction have not been completed yet the continued demolition. Sadly, everything is still like a mirage, little wonder what keeps ringing in the minds of the affected and yet to be affected buildings is: When will it be if it will be ever completed with the slow pace at which the project is going?

Many will begin to assume and assure themselves that the work will never be completed as the work has just been on one section of the road even after five years of construction without a definite completion of any part, though the beautiful tents built by the construction companies in different locations along the road, the presence of caterpillars, cranes and trucks will give little assurance on the possibility of completing the road construction.

It is pitiable that residents, commuters, and commercial vehicle drivers in this axis spend much man-hour in the constant traffic jam that characterized this chaotic route as a result of potholes. Quality time that would have been used for more productivity in the workplace and intimacy at family levels are now being wasted consequent to bad road, perhaps and most certainly, the worst Federal Government cum international road on the planet Earth.
•  Ejime Obinna
e-mail: myadvantage2010@yahoo.com