A ride on the 10-lane Lagos-Badagry expressway will not be free as Lagos State government plans to erect two toll gates to generate money from motorists for the road maintenance.
Concerns of late have been growing over slow pace of work on the road which is undergoing expansion from four lanes to ten, and will accommodate a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) lane and light rail that will run from Okokomaiko to the Lagos Island.
Femi Hamzat, the state Commissioner for Works, said the service lanes will, however, be exempted from the tolling, meaning that this will provide the alternative to motorists who may not want to pay the toll which rates, Hamzat did not disclose, perhaps, because work is still ongoing on the road.
“Let us look at it this way. As to how to get back what we spent, it is a 10-lane road with service lanes. And then in the middle, there is a light rail. We have two BRT lanes. The two middle lanes will be toll. But the service lanes will be there for those who do not want to pay toll,” he said.
He argued that it was the Lagos State government that built the Lagos-Badagry road before the Federal Government took over the road in 1977.
According to him, “If you look at the map of Africa, the road links some West African countries. From Lagos, you can actually drive and the road is going up to the Gambia. A lot of people on that route speak French, even up to Morocco.
“That population is about 280 million, and the majority of them spend the same currency. Technically, if we can open up that road, Lagos economy will blossom. It is strategic for us to take up the road”.
On plans by other African countries to link up with the light rail, he said it was the vice president of Ghana who approached Governor Babatunde Fashola on the issue.
“What happened was that the vice president of Ghana spoke to Governor Fashola on the possibility. He demanded to see the design of the project. This is to enable him see if it is possible to link up with the project.
“It is a talk, and that has been done. That shows you the possibility. If you take a train from London to France, even up to Germany, there is no reason we can’t do the same thing in this part of the world.
“We just need to link ourselves together like they did in Western Europe. One is happy that our leader is thinking in that line too. It will be a dream if it can happen. At least, that is true, and it is being pursued,” he said.
He said the state governments have a proposal to the Federal Government to take over all federal roads, saying that “we were supposed to have a meeting at the Federal Ministry of Works about two weeks ago.
“Unfortunately, a senator died and the meeting could not hold. This is one of the things we wanted to discuss. You are right. It will be a good day for us if they can cede them. But the challenge is that if you are giving us these responsibilities, then the budget of the Federal Ministry of Works must come down and be redistributed to all the states and let the state take the responsibility for these roads”.
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