By Praise Odhegba
Residents of the Ibeju-Lekki area of Lagos State are daily grappling and navigating through the challenges in the fast-growing industrial zone in the Epe axis of the state.
The people are recently faced with series of infrastructural challenges that have left them frustrated and struggling. Inconsistent electricity, deteriorated roads, among others, contribute to making life in the area arduous.
However, efforts to address these issues are now underway in line with the Renewed Hope promise made by the Bola Tinubu administration when it took office last year.
Currently, repair works and improvements are being made across the community.
But the problems have already affected the people in the community in so many ways.
James Olawale, who runs a retail store recalls the difficulties he faced during the brief period of no electricity in the Imaletealafia area of Ibeju-Lekki.
Lamenting the experience, he told Sunday Sun: “I sell a lot of things here in my shop, and a major part of them are perishable, frozen items like fresh vegetables, meat, fish and so on. This recent period of no electricity left me with the only option of using my generator to power the freezers and preserve my products.
“It was not easy at all, and I ended up spending more than I planned for this month, because of fuel. Fuel is quite expensive now, so lack of electricity will make people either live in darkness or spend quite a large amount of money on fuel to run their generators for a few days.
“Though Eko Electricity Distribution Company Plc, EKEDC, the DisCo that serves this area, has fixed the light issue, the amount of money I spent on fuel during that period of no light was like cutting off my hand. It was a painful expenditure.
“The reason for the outage was because our transformer had a fault. Normally in this country, most of the time, we can’t have electricity power supply when rain is falling because the power equipment are not able to withstand lightning storms. Moreover, windstorms that accompany the rains tend to pull down electric powerlines and poles. These can lead to shortcircuiting of the tranaformers. That is what caused our light problems recently.
“Rain was falling heavily and they left the light on, and that was how the transformer started having issues. Again, the officials of EKEDC have the habit of taking forever to address and repair electricity issues, hence making we in the community to struggle without electricity till whenever they are ready.”
For Amarachi Williams, another resident and a secondary school student, currently preparing for her General Certificate Examinations (GCE), the electricity issues disrupted her study schedule.
“This recent lack of electricity was kind of problematic for me, because normally, I go for tutorials during the day from 12:00p.m to 2:00p.m and when I come back, I partake in special online classes for some subjects I’m not too good at during the evening. This lack of light made my dad put on the generator for four days, until he eventually stopped due to expensive fuel. For the remaining days, we had to stay in darkness with no electricity or avenue for me to read or partake in any online class,” she said.
Similarly, Bolaji, who also resides in Imaletealafia, recounted the pain he experienced during the power outage.
He said: “Well, the only significant way this lack of light affected me was having to buy fuel. Before then, there had been constant electricity, and I never needed to buy fuel apart from filling the tank of my car. However, during that period, I had to buy enough fuel to run generator because I don’t like staying in darkness, alongside fueling my car. It was a huge expense.
“That was very bad for me, cost-wise because we all know how expensive fuel is currently coupled with the bad economy. In addition to buying foodstuff and basic commodities, expenditure on fuel was just a painful inclusion to the pile of expenses.
“From what I heard, the light was left on when it was raining heavily, causing the transformer to short circuit. EKEDC technical staff should please take better care of these transformers and stop plunging people into darkness that causes them excessive expenses.”
For James Akpan who commutes to work in Lagos Island, where he works in a bank, the severe deterioration of the roads in Imalete and Ibeju-Lekki as a whole has become a nightmare.
Expressing his frustration with the bad state of the roads that link the community to Lekki-Epe Expressway, he told Sunday Sun: “The issue of electricity for me, especially this recent one, is not too serious. It just comes and goes. I can endure and survive it, as long as it is not a regular occurrence. What we should be talking about now is the condition of the roads in the area. There is always one issue or the other with these roads. I have been in this areas over the last three years. I have witnessed different developments and repairs left and right.
“Another significant problem is the lack effective drainage. Currently, the government is reconstructuring the road to create drainages, because the crazy amount of rain that fell recently created so many potholes and flooded everywhere. Let rain fall a little and there will be flood everywhere, no solid ground to walk on or drive your car.
“Last year, the government came to fix the road and asphalt it, but somehow there are still gallops and potholes now. How does that make sense? It means the quality of the substandard. Given the nature of the terrain, I think the government should consider the option of building concrete roads reinforced with iron rods, just like the Oshodi-Apapa concrete road built under concession arrangement by the Dangote Group.
“The substanand asphalt road done in the place spoils everytime. This issue is not exclusive to Imalete, because other streets, towns and bus stops in this area also have the same issue, one way or another. The only places that are exempted from this problem are probably all those big estates. We have a lot of them here.
“In Bogije, for example, which is very close to Imalete, they also have terrible roads. From the bus stop inside, you will mostly see potholes. Mind you, government also worked on that road last year.
“Then, there is the main expressway. This one is different though, because it was fixed a while ago and does not have any issues as at now. However, residents of this Ibeju-Lekki area know what we passed through because of this road. Especially from last year into the beginning of this year, the roads were very bad, and as usual, there were potholes and gallops everywhere. This would cause serious traffic most of the times, that you would stay on the road for four good hours without even reaching your destination.
“The traffic hell became worse when the government started working on the road. If they were working on one side of the road, everybody would have to pass the other side, and it would be a one-way both for coming and going. At that time, if you wanted to get somewhere by 9:00a.m, you would have to leave your house and be on the road by 5:00a.m. Otherwise, you will miss the appointment.
“For a person who got home late and still had to get up again by 4:00a.m to quickly brush, use the toilet and bathe, dress up and step out of the house, all within 45 minutes, to get to the bus stop and join the staff bus, you can imagine the daily stress one had to go through to keep one’s job. It was a terrible experience. Some parts of Lekki-Ajah expressway are still undergoing reconstruction work currently, so automatically traffic is still a torment there.”
On the issue of politicians, who have failed to keep the promises they made to people in the community during the time of elections last year, Akpan said: “As for those promises, I cannot say that all of them have been kept. They promise a lot of things and the majority of them are usually lies or empty promises.
“However, as for promises relating to infrastructure in this area, I would say they have done a partial job. While they have indeed repaired most of the roads in this area, including the main expressway, it is not a good job. The roads they have been working on, keep spoiling and deteriorating everytime. I can bet that by next year, these roads will have issues again, and then we will begin the cycle of repairing them and causing traffic snarls all over again.
“All I can say is that the government should improve the standards and materials used in constructing these roads, such that it would be able to last for at least a decade. This will save the cumulative cost of frequent repairs.”
On Shapati, Ibeju-Lekki, Timothy Yusuff, a resident and company worker, like other people living in the area, feels sad about the difficulties they face moving around.
He said: “The roads in this area are quite bad, which is very abnormal because the government is constantly fixing the road. The lack of drainage in some places means that once rain falls, everywhere will get flooded. In the past few days that I have driven my car through the water, mud and deep potholes in this place, my car has developed multiple issues, and I am honestly just tired now. Since my car started having issues, I decided to go to work by public transport until the road is fixed.
“I would say the government is doing its work as promised, but not perfectly. It’s like they are just doing it half-baked, so that we will not say that they did not do anything at all. Which is not good, and is not the best considering everybody involved. The Lagos government should work better to improve the quality of this roads. It reduces the stress for me of having to dodge potholes everytime on the road as if I am in Fast and Furious movie. All those car bumps from the potholes, especially deep ones with serious impact, usually damage the vehicle’s suspension system or make it faulty, and then you will end up spending a considerable amount that you did not plan for, just to fix it – all because of government’s failure to do a good job on the roads.”
