Communities plead with LASG over abandoned road projects

The residents of Badia communities in Ijora, Apapa-Iganmu Local Council Development Area of Lagos State, have appealed to the Lagos State Government to help complete certain road projects reportedly abandoned in their area.

They said the neglect of the World Bank-sponsored road projects, which also included the construction of drainages, canal and boreholes in the communities, had compounded their woes, especially during rainy season with heavy flood preventing them from gaining access into their houses.

They claimed that the state government started the World Bank-sponsored projects but had abandoned them.

The Abete community leader, Alhaja Adebisi Bello, said it was unfair for the state government to abandon the projects, after they had been convinced to give up their buildings to be pulled down for such road construction.

She said some of the landlords, who had willingly allowed their buildings to be pulled down for road construction, were now asking community leaders to rebuild their houses since the state government had discontinued the projects.

Another community leader, Mr. Saka Yusuf, said it would have been better for the government not to start the project at all, lamenting that “when it rains, our children can’t go to school because of the flood.”

It was observed that many of the roads were in deplorable condition while some 18 renovated boreholes have not been opened for use.

For instance, Ojora Road, formerly an access road, has become a dumpsite with heavy stench oozing out of it.

According to the community leaders, only one out of the 12 roads has been completed so far.

The community leaders also said they had staged a protest march to the state secretariat in Ikeja to ask Governor Babatunde Fashola to look into their plight.

They also claimed that the contractor handling the projects had stopped work due to lack of funds.

Another community leader, Mr. Kayode Obadiah, said the latest call became necessary in view of the report that the government’s agent handling the project, Lagos Metropolitan and Governance Project, would cease to exist at the end of September 2013.

Obadiah said, “The government’s agent, Lagos Metropolitan and Governance Project, handling the project is about to wind up its activities in Lagos and we need to inform the public that the projects in Badia have left us in a worst situation than before.”