For motorists and Easterners who may be traveling home for Christmas celebrations, the announcement by the federal government that the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway will be thrown open on December 15,2019 to ease the current congestion on the expressway is a piece of good news.
Since September this year, the expressway has been partially closed to traffic because of the on-going reconstruction work being done by the German construction giant, Julius Berger.
It has been pretty difficult for travelers and people who reside within that stretch of the expressway from Ogere to Kara Bridge as gridlock is a daily dose of jitters and suffering for them.
The decision to open the expressway in December was part of the outcomes of a recent stakeholders’ sensitization meeting involving the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing, Police, FRSC, Truck drivers, and the governments of Oyo and Ogun states, held at the Ratcon Construction Company (RCC) yard in Ogere, Ogun State.
Funso Adebiyi, Director, Highway Planning, South West, Federal Ministry of Works and Housing, disclosed that there were plans to fast-track construction along that corridor, as all construction on the expressway would be suspended on December 15 to ensure free traffic during Christmas.
However, Adebiyi urged commuters to cooperate with contractors handling the project, as construction along the Ibadan axis being handled by RCC has reached critical stage that might cause discomfort to road users, especially truck drivers.
According to him, trucks and heavy duty vehicles parked indiscriminately along the road, especially at Ogere, would be relocated to a better place to allow for construction work along the Ogere axis of the road.
Adebiyi equally lamented the loss of two engineers to reckless truck drivers, stating that government cannot sit and watch the lives of innocent citizens wasted by reckless drivers, promising that the contractors will work round the clock to ensure speedy completion of the contract to deliver on the project.
Clement Oladele, the Ogun State Sector Commander of FRSC, urged contractors handling the road project to reduce the number of diversions on the road, stressing that most of the deaths recorded along the road occurred at the diversion points.
Oladele posited that diversion points are major challenge to traffic management along the corridor. He however pledged to enforce traffic rules on the road during the construction work.
Tijani Ahmed, secretary of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), Heavy/Mini Trucks, Ogere Branch, while speaking on behave of other stakeholders pledged the union’s cooperation with the contractor to ensure quicker completion of the project.
Ahmed equally urged the ministry of works to compel the contractors to help fix the access road into the truck packs so as to discourage truck drivers from packing along the expressway.
CHUKA UROKO
