Lagos Traffic

It has become an acceptable theory that it takes 2 hours at the minimum to cross Falomo Bridge from Ikoyi into Victoria Island. Access is no easier via Bonny Camp that takes three to five hours at the pleasure of the gods of traffic. For the Lagosians who travel to work or live in those parts the end point is a shorter life span. It is true, those who keep medical records say that high blood pressure and related diseases is on the increase, people have become more lethargic and psychiatrists are seeing more patients than they used to (this in itself may not be a bad thing but……….). In addition, money is wasted because otherwise valued hours are spent in traffic while burning expensive fuel freely awaiting that you will soon move, and family members gradually become strangers because you only see them only in the night when they’ve gone to bed or on Saturdays while you sleep off the fatigue from a workweek, mostly spent in traffic. Sunday of course belongs to religion – there are sermons to hear, Sunday school to teach, holy work to be done or Nasfat to attend if you are Muslim. Whatever your holy activity don’t wait too late before you head for home because you will only be caught in traffic.
Of a truth, Lagos traffic has implications for security, especially for those of us who can’t take up windows because of the sweltering heat. And even if you can, you may not have shatter proof glass to prevent the area boy or his senior brother, the armed robber from invading your home to take your belongings, stabbing you to death in the process. This however is not meant to be dark humor. It is meant to be a well thought out solution to the problem of one road. Or not, since the thinking was done while I sat in traffic trying to distract myself from the hawkers blocking my sun and making me breathe in the musk that oozed freely from their untidy bodies. The solution may not be so useful now, since the Ikorodu Road model upon which it is based has also been torn asunder. So far so good, it is an idea and it should not cost much to test it.