The Lagos State House of Assembly on Tuesday summoned the General Manager of Lagos State Traffic Management Authority, Mr Bashir Braimah, to explain the persistent gridlock on Lagos roads.
The call followed a motion moved by Mr Moshood Oshun (Lagos Mainland II) and seconded by Mr Yinka Ogundimu (APC-Agege II) under the matter of urgent public importance.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the House blamed LASTMA for dereliction of duty which, they said, had resulted to “unbearable” gridlock on the state’s roads.
Ogundimu said that the traffic situation had become worse because of the negative attitude of most drivers, bad roads and negligence of LASTMA officers.
Mr Jude Idimogu (PDP-Oshodi-Isolo 2), said the gridlock was as a result of the deliberate action of LASTMA officers in reaction to the call for civility by the governor.
“Many of the officers will be at the traffic prone areas, standing akimbo and be watching the situation unperturbed,” Idimogu said.
Idimogu said his approach to some of the traffic officers without disclosing his identity showed that the traffic officers were embittered by the governor’s pronouncement on their being civil.
Mr Tunde Braimoh, (APC-Kosofe II) alleged that LASTMA officers wanted to revolt against the good gesture of the governor because the call to be civil in their operations had affected their extortion.
“Now that the governor came up with a modern way of enforcement, what the officers do now contradicts their ‘modus operandi’.
“If there is need to drop all of them and recruit others, we have to do so, they cannot disregard the law of the House and the state,” Braimoh said.
Mrs Funmilayo Tejuosho (APC-Mushin II) said, “I agree that we have some rotten officers in LASTMA which we have to weed out.”
Tejuosho alleged that some of the officers extorted money so much that they follow offenders to ATM points to withdraw money for them without remitting same to government purse.
Mr Segun Olulade (APC-Epe II) said, “transport situation has degenerated in the state because of lawlessness of drivers and LASTMA.
“I have seen some sort of collaboration in sabotaging the governent. Some so called LASTMA disobey traffic laws,” Olulade said.
According to him, the existing traffic laws passed by the Assembly must be complied with by all.
He said that if there were problems in enforcing them, the LASTMA general manager should come for explanation. Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
Good talk
ReplyDeleteWhile many LASTMA officials are indeed sulking over the Government's order for civility, there are also fundamental issues the government needs to address. Some of the roads seem designed for gridlocks. Take the road from Ajah to Victoria Island - the so-called Lekki-Epe Expressway. Instead of building flyovers at traffic hot spots, the government built these silly giant roundabouts. Now everyone knows that the bottlenecks on that road are the roundabouts. It is acknowledged that the Lekki-Epe corridor is the fastest-developing corridor in the entire Africa. How can you have only one road leading from your business district to that corridor? Can the planners not see that a coastal road from Victoria Island to Epe, parallel to the existing "expressway" is the natural solution?
ReplyDeleteYes, by all means, admonish LASTMA. But there is a lot the government needs to do to address the structural issues that create the gridlocks.
Perfectly said!
Delete