AUGUST 8, 2013
Ijede Road, Ikorodu
motorists and other road users plying Ijede Road in Lagos have decried the slow pace of repairs on a few failed portions of the road.
They said the repair, being undertaken by the Lagos State Public Works Corporation, was unnecessarily delayed.
They said the slow pace of work had thrown road users into gridlock that had not been experienced on the road before.
A motorist, who gave his name only as Lucky, said, “The corporation started working on this road many weeks ago. We expected that it would not take long to fill the craters on Eleshin and Owo Elepe parts of the road.
“But, to the surprise of most road users, the repair work is dragging unnecessarily. During peak hours, people are usually frustrated because of the gridlock.
“We don’t know the cause of the delay. There is rain break now; I think this is the best time to complete the work.”
Another motorist, Felix Unongo, said because of the hold up on the road, he had been missing his appointments.
Unongo said, “I appeal to the government to intervene. When a project is being handled lackadaisically as this, one is wont to believe that either the contractors are not well-mobilised or they have run out of funds.”
A commercial bus driver, Mr. Chukwuyem Okoh, told PUNCH Metro that the development had affected his business.
“I am not the owner of the vehicle. I drive for somebody and I run from Ijede to Ikorodu Garage. Last time when I could not deliver his full money for the day, we quarelled,” he said.
In a telephone interview with the Executive Chairman, PWC, Mr. Gbenga Akintola, he said the road was not abandoned.
He said the budget for road was minimal hence the corporation could not afford to put personnel on the road on a daily basis.
Akintola urged the road users to be patient, saying that after the rains, they would complete the repairs.
He said, “The budget for the corporation is appropriated according to the weather. In the dry season, we get the chunk of our budget; in the wet season, we get a paltry sum. So what we offer in the rainy season, from July to September is skeletal service. We are not in full capacity.
“What we are doing in Ijede is to offer palliative by placing interlocking saving blocks. There are about 9,000 roads in Lagos and you can imagine every road is asking for our attention. We need to prioritise based on the amount of money available to us. We cannot afford to put personnel on that road on a daily basis.
“We do not want to put people on the road that we cannot pay. What we are saying is that people should be patient with us.”
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