Lagos report: Rain exposes the real state of the Lagos Badagry express roads

Chinedu Okafor

It has become apparent, the adopted Nigerian government principles, which seems to employ the psychological strategy of ‘ignore it till it goes away’, amongst other vividly atrocious methodologies, which can all be summed under one umbrella: negligence.

It is often said and spotted in several song lyrics that the rain washes away our pain, but here in Lagos we find ourselves diagnosing that the rain’s only function is to depict our pain. Whilst the government can hide its imprudence under the guise of the productivity of the hardworking Nigerians, where the people already find it difficult to cope; with the rains coming, the negligence of the government cannot simply be concealed, and I would like to believe that its underlining effects cannot be ignored.

The whole stretch of Lagos-Badagry road is in a deplorable state and the government made sure that it remained so. The state of the road has continue to make life unbearable for citizens residing in that axis.

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It is no secret the obstacles put in place by our very own administration, which makes it difficult for the ordinary and more times than not, extraordinary Nigeria citizen to flourish. Where a perfectly governed people would generally struggle with the normalcy of outputting a satisfying profit level, ultimately boosting the country’s economy, all while tackling the primary subject of making ends meet, Nigerians find themselves struggling twice as hard for this commonality, wrestling twice the frustrations and hindrances. Nevertheless, the rain inconsiderately increases these odds exponentially, now people literally can’t even get to their everyday, (already difficult struggles) without risking their well-being.

These findings, and trending contents, shows just how an even repressed people have been forced to cry out.

Certain trends and ethos suppresses the voice of the average Nigerian. We have some Nigerian people who against all odds, thrive and become successful and surviving otherwise, and because of such factors, Nigerians generally have millions of people silent to a plight that directly or indirectly affects them.

The aforementioned factors, this time, simply are not enough to regress the people, because while Nigerians have developed a habit of threading under the most difficult of circumstances, we all can agree that there is a well-defined line between difficult and just plain impossible and the government seems to be heading towards this transition.

Abandoned projects and ill-maintained infrastructures are beginning to shift the narrative from difficult to impossible. The question now becomes: when will the government begin to take responsibility? When will they realize that ignoring a problem doesn’t make it disappear?

We Nigerians find ourselves in a quandary, often wondering if things will ever get any better. The economy seems to be plummeting progressively, the researches shows that things have only been getting worse, with no positive shift happening in any point in its short history.

Standard of living is no different, technological advancements seems to be suffering also, whilst there was a time when promising Nigerians took to industrialization, now we depend solely on foreign trade for all our technological needs. This deterioration is also beginning to spill into our internal intuitions and infrastructures, and the government seems to be doing nothing about it.

There seems to be no laws put in place to maintain already existing infrastructures, and no plans of building highly sustainable new ones, which reflects on residents like Iyanoba, Volks, and Abulosun, despite housing major markets.

General environmental hygiene doesn’t escape this negligence.

The construction and maintenance of these particular roads were commissioned a few years back, with some of them miraculously being attended to, receiving a development budget and plan, and ultimately execution.

But with maintenance this poor, and sanitary laws this derelict, already built infrastructures continually regresses back to its squalor, and if the government continues to turn a blind eye, Lagos’s praise would shift its narrative from it being a mega city to becoming a mega slum.

There seemed to be no shortage of funds and implementations, during the last gubernatorial campaigns. So therefore, for the sanity of the people, for the sake of a better economy and for the pride of the nation, we hereby call the new government to action, and challenge them to change the narrative.