Commuters  can now heave a sigh of relief after weeks of traffic upheaval as Lagos State government,  true to its words, has deployed operatives of the Lagos State Ministry of Transportation, LASTMA, VIO  and law enforcement agents to the Apapa-Oshodi expressway  to ensure free flow of traffic.

The government had promised that by Monday,  23rd July, the road will be cleared for commuters as the State Commissioner of Police Imohimi Edgar announced that the State  Police Command will  begin ‘Operation Restore Sanity ‘ to free the Apapa gridlock.

This is also as the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo had also ordered the Lagos State Task Force to remove 2,000 petrol tankers from the road to free one lane for other commuters.

Indeed sanity may have been restored, but some commuters are pessimistic, believing that this may not last beyond this week, as this is not the first time that such effort has been made to rid the road of the menace caused by the tanker drivers. They urged the government to sustain the effort.

The ever busy Oshodi/Apapa expressway was on lockdown for much of last week, a situation caused by trucks and tanker drivers forcing other road users to resort to taking ‘one way’, an anomaly which would have attracted a fine.

This practise was even encouraged by the ‘agberos’ (street urchins) who resorted to collecting ‘Owo  one way’  (Fine for taking one-way) as they called it,  both from commercial and private car owners who paid as much as N1000 according to Political Economist checks.

Story by: Theresa Igata