Happy New Year and New Hopes on Ekocommute!

Hello folks,

Compliments of the New Year. Hope the holiday season was fun and traffic was not hell for you.

Your tardy blogger has surfaced again! I had to take a break from 'critising the great work of government to see what will happen in December' as admonished by a friend of mine after a heated argument on the merits and demerits of the Great Concessioned Road Project.

I had to summon all my willpower not to gloat at the 'bagger' when he complained quite bitterly about the tolling that was to commence on the 3rd of January, 2011. His grouse being that the road users were going to be cruelly billed for suffering in traffic. I could practically touch his relief when our 'caring' governor suspended tolling indefinitely.

In the last six months since my last post I have read and heard all kinds of comments on this project that you could create a political party from just this issue.

LCC and Hitech have managed to reach Jakande round-about with plenty of abandoned patches that they will probably revisit. Meanwhile a team of them are already uprooting the median all the way to Ikota and soon enough there'll be nightmare traffic there (as if what we suffer is not bad enough). What I cannot understand is why not harness all the resources and make sure the road is perfect up to Jakande. Build all the overhead brigdes, complete all pedestrian walkways, bus stops, street lighting etc. before uprooting and destroying the road beyond Chevron. The stretch between Jakande and Chevron has already been messed up and is now the major cause of the 2 to 4-hour commute we experience every morning. So let's hope this year will usher in more commonsense in project management.

Another hope for this year is proper traffic management and apprehension. In short, LASTMA! I have witnessed at least 5 incidents where LASTMA officials have manhandled errant drivers. 2 of them being this year and in one of them I had to intervene. Why would four men drag a man out of his vehicle just so they can impound his car? The one in which I intervened the Mobile policemen stood by and watched and when I intervened the MOPOL came to restrain me! In Nigeria, Power may not be what you're after, but it's definitely what you need! (apologies to Jacob's Cross)

I have often wondered why LASTMA spends more effort and men on apprehension than in controlling and easing traffic. Why have 8 to 10 men loitering at a point and there is still traffic? Check Chevron, Jakande and Phase I roundabouts every morning ; or if a truck breaks down then you have 4 to 6 men waiting for the truck to be fixed so it can be carted away, meanwhile the bottlenecks created at those points are not being managed and drivers just struggle amongst themselves to get by. I can go on and on but I think the point is made.

Anyway there is so much to hope for in 2011 as far as commuting in Lagos goes but the most significant aspects will come after the election when 'they' won't owe us anything again.

So as I wish you a prosperous New Year let's pray for an easier, safer and more secure experience on Lagos roads.

Eko o ni baje o!