Except miracle happens and, which do happen, the proposed Pen Cinema Flyover Bridge, which the Lagos State Government headed by the embattled Akinwumi Ambode, may not be completed on schedule.
The same fate befalls the Agege bus terminus, one of the several business terminus being constructed in the state of aquatic splendour to modernise and ease transportation in the state
Already, the Pen Cinema flyover project has overshot the initial 10 months duration which the governor told the Lagosians in January 2018 when the construction of the rather ambition 1.4-kilometre project, the longest by the state government will last. Residents of the area or those who eke out a living from shops in some of the buildings that were pulled down to make a way for the bridge, are still hoping that one day, the project will be delivered whether by Ambode or whoever succeeds him.
The entire corridor, starting from the Women Development Centre end of the bridge in Ogba side of the state where the bridge started to the Oke koto end in Agege where it terminates, can be described as a construction site, in fact, that is what they were some months back.
But now, “everywhere scatter, scatter” (to borrow the words of the late Fela Anikulapo –Kuti in one of his evergreen songs). The contractor and his workers have stopped work on that bridge even before Christmas and a resident who summoned courage to speak to us but not before he had warned that he would not want his name, picture and what have you in print when this writer visited the site on Monday, January 28, 4019, said, “I cannot tell you the exact day work stopped or the reason for that. All I know is that work had stopped before he was denied second term ticket.” He continued, “When work was still ongoing, nobody was allowed to pass through the bridge route, It was cordoned off but now, we sell and buy on the route. Buses have turned it into a garage while some sections of the route is now a public motor park. That is the situation now, though, we believe it will be completed one day, who, we do not know,” he said and disappeared quickly into the crowd.
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There is no doubt that work has stopped on the bridge. Whether it is because he was denied second term ticket or because of the paucity of funds in a state that rakes in over N30 billion from internally generated revenue (IGR) monthly, nobody, except Ambode can tell.
However, from the look of things, the fact remains that he may not finish the bridge before he goes on May 29, 2019. And that is if the state House of Assembly does not give him a red card before May 29.
As you read this, construction work has also stopped at the governor Akinwunmi Ambode initiated bus terminal in Agege just a stone’s throw from the abandoned flyover
As at Tuesday, January 29, 2019, when this reporter visited the Pen Cinema based bus terminal, that is opposite the former Mitchell Farms that is now home to a housing estate, the place is under lock and key and flooded as a result of the day’s mid-morning rain.
And as usual, some of the sellers whose shops were inside the expanse of land that used to be garage for commuter buses plying Iju/Agbado/Ogba/Lambe/Oke Aro routes have now converted the entrance of the proposed bus terminal to their temporary, open-air shops and stalls while the yellow buses that were chased out of the place, now park indiscriminately along the Iju road, causing heavy vehicular traffic.
One of the traders selling in front of the bus terminal had this to say: “They stopped coming for long. Ha, if it was when work was going on, who born anybody to stay here. Even the trucks coming and going out minute by minute would not allow one to be here. We pray they abandoned the job joor.”
Attempts to get Lagos State Government Commissioner for Information, Mr Kehinde Bamigbetan, to speak on it was futile as he would not take or return our repeated calls.
