Egba summit urges FG to resume redevelopment of Lagos-Ibadan Expressway

The Egba Economic Summit, a socio-economic group in Ogun State, has called on the Federal Government to resume the ongoing reconstruction of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, to prevent it from deteriorating further.

The Lagos-Ibadan road is being redeveloped at a cost of N167 billion. The Lagos-Sagamu stretch of the road is being redeveloped by Julius Berger, while the Sagamu-Ibadan axis is being handled by RCC, but work on both sections ceased when the President Muhammadu Buhari administration came on board.

Ayobami Biobaku, president, Egba Economic Summit, said in a statement yesterday that the Federal Government should recall the contractor handling the Lagos-Sagamu interchange stretch of the road to improve economic activities in the area and to reduce the agony of the people who use the road.

He added that it was also important for the Ogun State government to contract a construction company to do palliative rehabilitation of some sections of that road that have deteriorated since the main contractor left the site.

Biobaku said: “We noticed that the contractor has moved out of site, leading to dilapidation of the road to the deplorable state it was in about two and a half years ago. The bad road adversely affects the socio-economic life of our people and negates the purpose of reconstructing the road,” adding that good roads were indispensable to the economic growth of any community where they are built.

The deplorable state of the road, according to him, has made it difficult for the state government to carry out some developmental projects in that axis of the state, because it is important for there to be coordinated flow of infrastructure from the expressway to the inner roads.

He said the government plans to develop that area of the state, which hosts mostly industries but has been unable to do so in the last four years because of slow pace of work on the expressway that has eventually grounded to a halt.

Biobaku said it was now very difficult to predict travel time on that road, adding that travel time between the former toll gate at the Lagos end and the Sagamu interchange, before work on the road got stalled, was barely 30 minutes but that presently it could take between one and three hours to cross that same stretch.

He said officers and men of the Federal Roads Safety Corps who were always there to ensure there was traffic flow make the traffic bearable.

At the start of work on the road, former President Goodluck Jonathan said basic infrastructure, particularly roads, whether, they belong to the federal, states or local governments by classification, they are meant for the use and benefit of the generality of all Nigerians.

“All of us belong to the Federal Republic of Nigeria and we are free to reside in any part of the country. My belief is that, whether a project is delivered by the Federal Government or the state government or local government, what Nigerians need is basic infrastructure.

“Therefore, good partnering by all the tiers of government, federal, states and local governments and good spirited individuals will make us deliver the dividends of democracy to our people,” he said.