• Home
• Columnist
• Videos
• Artist
  • Musicians
  • Actors
  • Comedians
• Notable Nigerians
• Legend Dies
• Articles
  • Nigeria Articles
• Photos
• Submit Article

Author: Guardian, Editorial
Posted to the web: 5/9/2006 7:56:04 AM

During the last Easter season, what should be a simple, events-free journey through the Lagos - Ibadan Expressway reportedly became, for many travellers, a most harrowing experience. A 'Good Friday Miracle Night' event held by the Christ Embassy religious group literally turned into a traffic nightmare whereby honest citizens going about their business were trapped in a post- miracle night rush that kept them on the road for anything between four and twelve hours. Citizens who had business appointments to keep, could not do so. Over the past few years, the plots of land adjoining the stretch between kilometers 35 and 46 from the Lagos end were parcelled out to various religious groups with each holding now transformed into a sort of retreat where respective adherents seek spiritual communion under different labels. No fewer than eight denominations have, for reasons that only they can explain, chosen to locate their prayer/camping/retreat grounds along this busy highway. The result is that the right to personal freedom of worship has been allowed to constitute an impediment to the public's freedom of passage and sober and private religious activities have often degenerated into public nuisance. On normal days, the traffic along the Lagos-Ibadan road is very heavy and the flow highly sensitive to disruptions such as vehicular breakdown, improper parking etc. Whereas Christ Embassy made every other necessary arrangement for its elaborately publicised function, it failed, curiously enough, to provide for vehicle parking space thus forcing its members to park along the expressway. The surge of human and vehicular traffic into the expressway after the event inevitably worsened the situation. But all these were avoidable if only the group had borrowed a leaf from the way that others have successfully managed events on that highway with minimum inconvenience to the public. While we believe that the incident was not deliberate, Christ Embassy must nevertheless accept full responsibility for its lack of foresight and poor planning; it also owes Nigerians a public apology for the avoidable distress it inflicted upon many on that fateful day. This is the right thing to do. That incident throws up other salient issues that need to be addressed. First, it should be obvious enough that organisers of events on that expressway should create adequate parking space and arrange for easy traffic flow into and out of their grounds, among other exigencies. An even better option would be to discourage the use of private vehicles by ferrying members in hired buses to and from the city. Furthermore, they have a duty, both, moral and civic, to inform and request the assistance of the Police, the FRSC and any other security outfit to ensure incidence-free activities. These measures would assure the rest of us that these people of faith do not lose sight of our rights and convenience. However, in view of the grossly inconvenient incident caused by the Loveworld crusade, it would seem necessary that, in the interest of the larger society, events organisers on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway be compelled by law to adopt these measures. It might not be out of place, indeed it would speak for good corporate citizenship if, jointly, the various groups could build an overhead bridge to ensure a free flow of on from their immediate stretch of the expressway. Second, the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway is not just another road; it is a very busy road, and arguably the busiest road in the country. It is an indictment of successive governments and urban planners that this has remained a four-lane expressway several decades after it was built. Meanwhile and in the absence of decent and efficient public transportation system the road has suffered deterioration and congestion because of the manifold increase of human and vehicular traffic. This important motorway certainly needs special and urgent attention. It is at present too narrow and the surface is in bad condition. We call on the Federal Government to, as a matter of urgency widen it to eight lanes to cope with the present pressure. Furthermore, given the large human traffic at all times, we suggest that the route be put under a 24- hour patrol by the FRSC and security forces. Third, in order to reduce pressure on the Lagos -Ibadan route, the federal government must facilitate the use of alternative routes into and out of Lagos by completing quickly, the construction work on the Ikorodu-Sagamu road, and the Lagos end of the Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway. We concede that the driving habit of Nigerians leaves much to be desired and this is a major cause of traffic chaos within and outside cities. The parking of heavy trucks on both sides of the road at the Ibafo end of the road is a case in point. We urge the Ogun State government to enforce the law compelling trailer vehicles to park at the purpose-built Ogere park. In respect of the Good Friday incident, the FRSC reportedly claimed that impatience and the indiscipline of road users contributed to the situation. It can only be hoped that many would have learnt from their experience to behave differently on the road. All said, we must take a larger view and properly situate these untoward incidents within the holistic context of a polity in which moral, political, religious leadership centres are unwilling -or unable -to make a difference. Of relevance here is that religious practice has largely gone the ways of the secular. That average citizens are undisciplined and impatient on the road imitates the behavior of their rulers, on the road and in other spheres of life as exemplified by financial fraud, political chicanery and miracle-dispensing religion all of which are symptoms of an impatient desire to take the short cut, to bend rules, to avoid 'due process' - those very critical requirements for an orderly society.