Commuters plying the Ogijo-Ikorodu Road in Lagos State have called for the immediate rehabilitation of the dilapidated road.
The commuters told the News Agency of Nigeria on Saturday that users of the road were groaning under the inflated transport fares on the route and the cost of repairing their vehicles.
NAN reports that fares have jumped by 300 per cent for commercial buses and cabs, 350 per cent for tricycle users and 400 per cent for motorcycle users.
Irene Ayomide, a pepper seller at Ikorodu and a resident of Ogijo, stated that her transport fare to and from her shop on a daily basis is negatively affecting her business.
Ayomide said: “My customers are complaining that my pepper is too expensive and so I am not making enough sales.
“The high cost of pepper is because of what I pay too to get to where I do my trading.
“I urge the government whose duty is to maintain the Ogijo-Ikorodu Road to fix it before commoners like me are driven out of business.”
A landlord at Ogijo, Femi Akinyemi, whose printing press is at Ikorodu, said many private car owners had been compelled to stop driving their cars on the Ogijo-Ikorodu Road due to its dilapidated state.
Akinyemi said: “We the residents that have to travel on this road to the Island are suffering and paying too much on transportation.
“Many people now critically examine how many times they need to be on the road.
“Most of us reduce the number of times we have to go out to curtail the frustrations encounter daily on that route.”
A commercial bus driver, Musibau Ogunlaja, told NAN that the cost of maintaining his vehicle had quadrupled because of the deplorable state of the Ogijo-Ikorodu Road.
Ogunlaja said: “I am forced to factor the cost of keeping my bus in good condition into the fare I have to charge commuters.
“I hope the commuters will understand that we are all victims here.”
Another commercial bus driver, Olubiyo Akintomide, urged all the government agencies at the federal, state and local government levels along the road to work closely to rehabilitate the road.
Akintomide said: “It is sad to imagine that a road that accommodates traffic control agencies of the federal and state governments, a military barrack, state government fire service and blue chip manufacturing companies can be so bad.
“It is likened to be surrounded by fresh clean water and be seriously thirsty.
“That route does not lack government presence from top to down, but lacks the basic element of what government presence is supposed to bring and portray.
“I believe that if these governmental agencies pull their resources together, the rehabilitation of the road will be achievable in the shortest possible time.”
NAN.
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