A young  couple who had  just taken the marital vow at a popular Lagos registry were heading for Ibadan for the reception after which they hoped to forever savour the flavour of conjugal bliss. Their dreams, unknown to them, had been destined never to be. Thirty minutes into their journey on the Lagos/Ibadan expressway, they ran into a traffic jam. As a way of beating the traffic and getting the couple to their destination on time, the driver decided to drive against the  traffic on the other side of the road. He made a wrong calculation, the result of which made him to have a head-on collision with an oncoming heavy duty truck. The driver and the couple perished on the spot.

Another road mishap happened on that same spot two weeks after, where an entire household comprising of the grandmother, father, mother and three children were sent to their early graves.

This sad scenario is often replicated  on the same road. Some 76 kilometres away from the above-mentioned area, the latest road accident claimed three lives, including two siblings.

There are  two versions to the story. One account had it that the three victims were standing by the roadside when a truck went off course and crushed them to death. The other version had it that they were trying to cross the road when a  truck on high  speed cleared them off the road. According to this account, the force with which the victims hit the tankers parked by the roadside was so intense that two of them bounced back onto the road before another vehicle finally ran over them.

You are welcome to Ogere and Ojoo sections of the Lagos/Ibadan expressway, where articulated vehicle drivers have taken over some sections of the road by converting same to their parks, thereby making these areas the most accident-prone spots on the highway. Consequently, many travellers on the road have embarked on a journey of no-return, while some have lived to tell the stories. The consensus has been  that of a cautioning tale to motorists.

According to statistics provided by the Ogere unit of the Federal Road Safety Commission, covering areas such as Sapade, Fidiwo, Ogunmakin, Isara,Onigari among others, road accidents involving articulated vehicles in this area, from 2007 till date, have claimed not less than 75 lives while 333 were injured.

At the Ojoo end of the expressway, the gateway to the northern part of the country,  heavy trucks conveying goods and other items from the south to the north and vice versa, struggle with smaller vehicles to gain the right of way between  the trucks parked on both sides of the road, thus creating a commotion of sorts, which makes even the movement of pedestrians an arduous task.

Traffic gridlock in these areas is a near-permanent feature, lasting for hours or even days — costing travellers valuable man-hours.

There’s no gainsaying the fact that the nation’s highways have since been taken over by trucks  that wreak all forms of havocs-killing, maiming, obstructing traffic, etc, on the populace.

This has prompted many people to advocate that the trucks be made to move only late in the night to minimise contact with other road users. Or better still, they   suggest that the rail system  be revived, a move that would ultimately reduce the number of trucks that ply the roads.

Two Sundays ago, a truck belonging to the Dangote Group caused a road mishap that involved over 15 vehicles while more than 40 persons lost their lives at the Lagos end of the Lagos/Ibadan expressway. Consequently, the Federal Road Safety Commission has engaged the management of the group in crucial talks due to what it described as the commission’s “discomfort at the high incidence of accidents involving vehicles from Dangote Group.” The FRSC  noted, in particular, the excesses of the truck drivers which include reckless driving, overloading, driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol, driving in the rain, road indiscipline and so on.

But the issue of trucks parked by the roadside which, ordinarily, would appear easy to redress, has proved to be intractable.This is the situation all over the country where heavy trucks line the  roads.

In realisation of the risk they pose to other road users, successive governments have taken steps to redress the situation.

The Ogun State government, under  which is Ogere, has built two trailer parks.

In Oyo State, the state government has given the drivers at the Ojoo axis of the expressway the marching order more than once, all to no avail.

The situation has become a kind of a back and forth progression that leaves everyone exasperated.

Yet, in spite of the efforts by the government,  cynicism has been expressed in many quarters over the ability of the government to dislodge these truck drivers, hinging their argument on either official corruption or what they term “a politicised issue.”

They reasoned that if this were not so, then how could a handful of people violate the laws of the land for so long and with such impunity?

It has even been alleged that the drivers have boasted that no government could make them quit these areas because the expressway is the property of the government at the centre, and that since their kinsmen had always been in control at the centre, then there’s nothing anybody could do to displace them.

According to a report, when the Oyo State government effected their dislodgement in Ojoo in 2007, they had bragged that their leaving was just for a while; and that they would soon return, because all indicators pointed to the fact that their kinsman, Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua would become the next president of the nation.

But in an interview with the Nigerian Tribune,. Alhaji Ali Yaro, the Seriki Ojoo and head of the Hausa community, and the articulated vehicle drivers, denied the allegations, describing them as the concoctions of some mischief makers to tanish the image of articulated vehicle drivers, most of whom are of northern extraction.

He insisted that his people, particularly the drivers, are law abiding and would not go out of their way to contravene the laws of the land.

Alhaji Yaro pointed out that the drivers who park on the roadside in Ojoo are on transit from Lagos to the North, and that they only wait for a short while to eat, relax, and pray in the mosques within the vicinity, especially during  this time of Ramadan, before moving on.

He  noted that government was already building an international trailer park, to which they promised to relocate them, and that when this is done, the issue of using the highway as a temporary parking space would become a thing of the past, adding that the road accidents attributed to the tanker drivers were the will of Allah.

But the Oyo State Commissioner for Environment, Alhaji Majekodunmi Aborode, noted that since the state government has carried out three successful operations at the Ojoo axis of the expressway to get the trucks off the road, any driver parking his truck on the road is contravening the law and would be made to face the music, adding that any impounded trailer will attract a fee of N250,000 for its release.

He stated that government had provided an international trailer park at Akinyele Local Government, with modern amenities, and wondered why some of the trucks are still being parked by the roadside.

On his part, the branch secretary of the National Union of Road Transport Workers, Ogere heavy/mini trucks, Comrade Suleiman Adeyemi, said that the two trailer parks provided by the Ogun State government cannot accommodate all the trucks, hence the roadside parking.

Corroborating Alhaji Yaro’s claims, he declared that the trucks are on transit and are therefore parked on the roadside on temporary basis.

Comrade Akinyemi stressed that “When they have fully loaded their tankers at the depots, they still need to wait to collect the ‘way bill’ before they can embark on their journey. They cannot wait inside the depots, and due to ‘no parking’ law in Lagos, they cannot wait anywhere in the metropolis. So they wait here temporarily, only to collect the way bill without which they cannot continue on their journey.”

He noted further: “The arrangement we had with Bi-courtney company, which is handling the rehabilitation of the highway, was that the outer recesses of the expressway would be graded to enable the trucks to move further away from the road and to have a good place to park.”

However, the FRSC Deputy Education Officer, Mr. Bisi Kazeem, said the issue of parking by the roadside would be fully addressed at a stakeholders meeting that has been fixed for early September, where the FRSC would dialogue with the drivers of these heavy trucks on the way out after which the resolutions would be forwarded to the government for necessary action.

Comments (1)

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Tribune Fan
written by Awoyemi Jeleel, August 25, 2010

Policy makers are also stake holders in the making, how then would there policies have effect on the subject matter.Only God fearing minds can run public offices, not the likes of what we have now. Lets make Nigeria a better place.

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