Story and photograph by: Bukola Adebayo
It has been a particularly bad day for those who make use of the access roads around the Lagos State Government Secretariat, Alausa, Ikeja, as the enforcement of the ‘no sticker, no entry’ for cars into the secretariat began on Wednesday.
This is more so for staff and visitors to the secretariat.
Traffic stretched from the secretariat gate in a radius of not less than five kilometres in all dimensions.
The directions from which the traffic came included the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Seven Up Road, Ikeja, Oregun axis, Allen Avenue and Agidingbi Road.
For those coming from Ikeja, traffic started from Under Bridge, a distance of about seven kilometres to the secretariat.
So instead of a journey of about 20 minutes, on a normal day, those heading in the direction of the secretariat spent over one hour.
Those who approached the secretariat from Allen Avenue, which is less than four kilometres from the seat of the Lagos State Government, spent about 40 minutes.
Ordinarily, it should take less than 10 minutes from Allen to Alausa Secretariat.
Initially, the thinking was that the state government was screening vehicles for explosives owing to the menace of bombing by the dreaded sect, Boko Haram, but it turned out that it was to enforce that vehicles without the authorised sticker do not gain entry into the secretariat.
A staff in one of the ministries told The Eagle Online: “It is not only those that are visitors who suffered the consequences of the decision to enforce the law on usage of sticker to gain entry into the secretariat today.
“Those of us who are also staff too did. I approached the secretariat from Ikeja and right from there I entered into the traffic until when I got here.”
A visitor to the secretariat told The Eagle Online: “This is not such a good thing to do on a major road like this.
“It was like something was terribly wrong.
“I would have returned to my office but for the fact that my transaction here is official.”
As at press time, staff of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority and Vehicle Inspection Officers were still enforcing the no stiocker, no entry rule at the secretariat.
The traffic is yet to abate.