The Chairman of the Lagos State Council of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), Mr. Adeleye Ajayi, has commended the Federal Government for the free flow of traffic being enjoyed on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway.
According to him, the traffic’s free flow was a result of the temporary re-opening of the highway to traffic by the Federal Ministry of Work and Housing.
Speaking with journalists on Friday, Ajayi joined some other road users to hail the authorities for the seamless movement now experienced on the highway.
Recall that the Federal Federal Ministry of Work on Monday re-opened closed lanes on Section one of the highway which spans Ojota in Lagos to Sagamu Interchange to traffic days ahead of schedule.
The re-opening, which entailed the removal of barriers that had been used to narrow lanes in the area, followed the suspension of reconstruction works on the OPIC axis of the expressway until January, to ease traffic flow during the festive period.
Ajayi thanked President Muhammadu Buhari, the Minister for Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, and his engineers for being sensitive to the plight of Nigerians to re-open the highway to accommodate Yuletide travels.
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He said that people had a harrowing experience on the highway in the past due to loss of man-hours but the current reality of seamless movement was good and should be sustained.
Ajayi appealed to the Federal Government to utilise the dry season to meet its newly set completion deadline of March 2023 on the highway ahead of the rains in April.
Mr. Anayo Valentine, a commercial bus driver who plies the Ojodu Berger to Magboro axis, said before the re-opening of the highway to traffic, transporters charged N500 or more for the short journey because of the gridlock.
Mrs. Gloria Faisal, a resident of Sparklight Estate, Arepo, said the re-opening had given her the courage to drive on the highway again.
Faisal said she stopped driving on the highway for over 10 months because of the congestion and confusion caused by gridlock as a result of construction works and reckless driving.
