Five months to go, Amosun returns to abandoned road

Months after abandoning works on its 6-lane road, Ogun State Governor, Senator ibikunle Amosun, has mobilised contractors back to work on the road.

Workers who were seen at the Alagbole end of the road were said to have returned to work on Monday December 10, 2018.

But it still remain to be seen if the project which the governor said was supposed to have been completed in 2018 will be completed before he leaves office on May 29,2019.

The 32-kilometre road from Sango with five bridges was started in 2012 and had led to the demolition of many houses.

It will be recalled that Newdawn had done a story titled ….

Below is the full Text of the story as reported two months ago by Newdawn.

When the Ogun State government began it’s  plan to commence the 32km highway to link Sango, Ijoko and Berger through several communities, little did residents know that the project would exceed the stipulated time frame, thereby subjecting residents to untold hardship.

Of course the project had claimed several buildings and a number of businesses were affected. In all, about 200 houses were said to have been affected, totaling several billions of Naira in worth.

However, the completion of the project in record time would have been the respite for people in the area and other road users who are today still lamenting the demolition of their property and destruction of their means of livelihood.

Mrs. Juliana Abeke Adekunle is a retiree and a landlady in Alagbole, Akute, Ogun State who is alive to count her losses after part of her property was demolished in preparation for the massive construction which the state government intend to link the Lagos commercial hub and reap the benefits of population explosion and modernisation which has forced many residents of Lagos into the suburbs in neighbouring Ogun State.

Adekunle who earlier wanted to be anonymous later summoned courage to be mentioned by New Dawn since she has nothing to lose again according to her.

“When this construction was starting during the first tenure of our Governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, my building was among those that were marked. We thought it was a joke,” she said.

Stating further, she said, “When it was eventually found to be true, there was nothing anyone could do. You can see how many buildings it affected. I thank God mine was not too deep into the road and just a part where we have shops were affected while others were not too lucky.”

Although she applauded the government for the project, she also advised that town planning department should approve or disapprove buildings before they are erected. “If town planning departments are doing their work properly, they should have disallowed buildings that they know were not properly positioned.

“Even in areas people have not moved into, there are plans, you’ll see where there are proposed roads on the plan. Town planning department should not allow anybody trying to build on waterways and proposed roads. Prevention is better than cure they say.

“They would have allowed people to build and occupy for many years then suddenly they would say they are expanding roads or building bridges and canals and start demolishing, it is unfair,” she complained.

A commercial motorcyclist in Ajuwon area of Ogun State also told New Dawn that a lot of those affected have died due to the shock they received after the demolition exercise. “Some of the people whose buildings were demolished have died since their means of livelihood have been destroyed,” he said.

The commercial cyclist who preferred to be anonymous continued to express his displeasure. “See the bridges now, for years they have not completed anyone around here and the man’s tenure is getting over, tell me, what if the next governor now finally abandons the project?” He queried.

Complaining further, he said, “You can now see, after demolishing all the shops and houses, the promised project has not been delivered. Why didn’t they leave the structures which were means of livelihood of people until the government is ready to start and complete the project?”

Early 2014, Governor Ibikunle Amosun had visited Alagbole, Akute and other neighbouring communities promising to complete the Sango-Ijoko-Berger highway under construction, but four years down the line, and with over 200 houses demolished to give way for the six-lane highway project estimated to gulp N65billion, the road including five overhead bridges have not been completed and in fact, work has since stopped.

Indeed, in it’s state of non-completion, the state government toyed with the idea of constructing light rail line in the middle of the highway to link sango and Lusada area in Agbara, but with paucity of funds and lack of adequate priority by the government of the day, everything has turned into a pipe dream.

To make matters worse, roads in the several adjoining communities like Adiyan, Matogun, Lambe are all in various stages of neglect compounding the problem of thousands of residents some of who migrated to the adjoining communities when the road construction started.

In a monitored interview on TVC, a Lagos-based television station before Amosun’s second term bid, he had denied insinuation that the project has been abandoned because of his re-election campaign.

He claimed then that the reduction in the state’s monthly allocation was the reason the project was not completed before his re-election for a second term in office.

The abandonment of the project has however caused so much hardship for the people in the affected communities.

Another landlady in Matogun area of Ogun State told New Dawn her plan of relocation to another state.

“I have been waiting for my last born to finish his youth service in the north. Once he is through, I will put my house for sale and use the income to buy a plot in Ilorin or Osogbo and build a comfortable house. I’m tired of the hardship in Lagos and Ogun States,” she said.

When New Dawn visited the Alagbole-Akute axis of the project on Friday, motorists were seen struggling it out to get to their destinations.

A commuter also congratulated New Dawn for visiting on a dry day and at a time traffic had not peaked. “If you had come may be very early in the day or late in the night when workers were either going to work or returning, you would see the hardship we pass through,” he said, explaining how hectic it could be also on a rainy day.

Pointing to the board having the details of the project, another resident in the area said the board says it all.

“The board over there has the details of the project. You can see the duration has since expired, the board is even rusted. We just can’t wait for them to complete the road,” he said.

Meanwhile, the abandoned bridge at the Alagbole end now habours some destitute and beggars from the northern part of the country. Another part of it is occupied by commercial cyclists popularly called Okada riders.

If the project continues at an abandoned level, chances are that miscreants would use it as hide-out even as it has started being overgrown by bushes.

Visiting the Agbado crossing end of the project as well, the project is equally abandoned. Commuters however complained to NewDawn how their vehicles often visit the mechanic workshops.

A commercial driver who simply identified himself as Hakeem narrated his ordeal. “My bus has been with the mechanic since yesterday and I am not sure I can work today as well, the road often damages our vehicles,” he said.

The driver stated further that, “Life was better before this project that is now abandoned. You can see one bus there (pointing to a broken down vehicle), it was just damaged also by the bad road. Now that the governor is leaving, we don’t know how they want to fix the road.

“They live in the state capital, they don’t feel what we face here on a daily basis just to fend for our families. We have wives and children and aged parents we cater for as well. How do we survive another one year on the project that we earlier thought would lessen our burden?” he asked.

Like the Alagbole end of the project, parts of the Agbado end of it are now being filled with refuse. While New Dawn visited the site, a green truck with an inscription ‘OGEPA’ was seen while some workers were evacuating refuse heaped beside the bridge into it.

Like the saying goes, an idle hand is the devil’s workshop, this may also mean that an idle or an abandoned bridge can easily be a dump site especially when there is no provision for adequate waste disposal mechanism.

Also the project now overgrown can easily habour reptiles and miscreants who may take advantage of the abandoned state of the project to hibernate and hurt unsuspecting passersby using the cover of darkness.

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Meanwhile, at the inception of the project in which five flyovers are embedded to link Alagbole-Akute-Ijoko communities in the state, residents of the area had thought the project originally planned to connect Ijoko via Otta to Berger end of Lagos would be a thing of joy and perhaps a campaign tool for the ruling party. But years after, the dream is close to being aborted as the 2019 general election is just about 16 weeks away.

Many have termed the construction as another white elephant project and a total failure based on the hardship it has caused after so much tax payers’ money has been sunk into it.

What came as a good news many years ago is now something close to a curse on the residents of the adjourning communities. A large population in the affected communities work in Lagos which explains the daily exodus from the area to Lagos every morning.

The government of the two states would do well in combining efforts to ease the suffering of the people in the area although Lagos State government is doing its best to improve infrastructure within its territory.

However, the Ogun State government must truly have meant well with the project which when delivered would be a beauty to behold and a great service delivery to the people because the 32km stretch would definitely connect beyond the initially planned Lambe, Akute, Ajuwon, Ijoko, Alagbole, Berger axis because many other communities would spring up due to easy flow of goods and services.

Meanwhile, one of the most lucrative businesses in the axis now an abandoned construction site is commercial motorcyclists due to the rough terrains.

Quite a number of car owners have since parked their vehicles outside the area while they go by commercial motorcycles to connect their routes.

A tricycle operator from Edo State who introduced himself as Collins also told New Dawn the hardship he experiences daily.

“I operate on this route and I can tell you it is not an easy route. I only appeal to the government to help out. Definitely Amosun cannot complete it and that is why we are appealing to whoever is coming next to start his government from here,” he pleaded.

Road construction is a capital project of the government in Nigeria and a number of the times, citizens don’t get to know the details of these projects which include the cost and lifespan.

As much as the government wants to start projects and deliver same, citizens should ensure to know the details of any project and constitute a pressure group to monitor and ask questions when necessary since the project is about them and more so it is funded by taxpayers’ money.