Thread by @goslownews

The boss of the Nigerian Football Federation, Amaju Pinnick told reporters that the Super Eagles travelled by sea to Cotonou "to enable the boys get a great view of our vast country".

Pinnick was lying.

This is going to be a long thread. Please be patient and read through.

The real reason the Super Eagles were ferried through the sea to Cotonou was to avoid decrepit of the Lagos - Badagry Expressway, which is now a collection of craters, open-air toilets and worst vehicular traffic any where in the world.

That corridor has become a recurring nightmare and an unending torture to residents of the area and other road users, Imagine how the players many of who grew up in Europe and elsewhere would think if made to travel through it to Cotonou.

On social media some said the trip by sea should be applauded as it will help to showcase an alternative means of transportation. They said the state government has invested huge sum into making this possible.

This is not true.

While the state government has announced its interest in making water travel safer, it has not very little in making this happen. Boat mishaps are still regular, and most of the private operators still use unsafe canoe with makeshift life jackets for commuters.

It is also, the most expensive way to travel in the city. While the government has provided some old ferries in some riverine communities, Badagry has been completely ignored.

For instance, there is no modern jetty in the town and there is no large ferry from the town

Boat mishaps with scores of fatalities happen on the route regularly. These have been either underreported or ignored.

Now back to the real reason why the Super Eagles travel by sea instead of the shorter road trip.

Please be patient and continue reading.

The Lagos - Badagry Expressway was constructed in 1976. it extends from Iganmu to arguably Nigeria's most lucrative land border in Seme, just outside Badagry.

In its 45 years of existence the road has seen no major upgrade and very minimal maintenance.

But in 2003, a former governor of Lagos, Bola Tinubu, announced that as part of the government's Greater Lagos Urban Transportation Project, he was going to expand the road from 4 to 10 lanes. he also announced that a light rail line will be constructed from Okokomaiko to Marina.

he said $135 million will be spent on the project. When he left office in 2007, no work has been done.

Before we continue, we will like to break the Lagos -Badagry Expressway into four parts.

As you read on you will see why this demarcation is important

The Lagos -Badagry Expressway can be divided into:

1. The Iganmu -Mile 2 corridor
2. Mile 2 - Okokomaiko corridor
3. Okokomaiko to Agbara corridor, and
4. Agbara to Badagry corridor.

Enter Babatunde Fashola. Riding on the tide of the widespread support he enjoyed at the time, Fashola, in 2008, who is now the minister of works, announced that the light rail and road project will be delivered in 2011.

The project effectively kicked off in 2009.

The contract was awarded to China’s state-owned China Civil Engineering Construction Corp (CCECC).

Fashola could not meet the 2011 deadline for delivering the project. he extended it to 2013, and then 2015 but only a fraction of the work on the project was delivered.

Enter Akinwunmi Ambode! He promised to deliver the road by December 2016. But just like his two predecessor he failed to do so when he left office in 2019.

Ditto for the incumbent Babajide Sanwo-Olu. In December 2019, he promised the the project will be completed in 2020 and will be become operational in 2021.

The Sanwo_Olu administration has barely moved the project beyond where Ambode left it before leaving office.

While the project remains stagnate, its budget has continued to grow. From the originall $135 million estimate of the Tinubu administration, the last known cost of the project, according to the Lagos government was, $1.2 billion.

@PremiumTimesng wrote an excellent features about project last December.

premiumtimesng.com/investigations…

Now to how the inability of the richest state in the country to complete the project 18 years after it was announced.

A 2019 report by @sbmintelligence revealed it takes communters 4hrs 28 minutes to travel from Badagry to Ikeja.

This thread by @Chxta the lead researcher at SBM Intelligence explains it further.

https://twitter.com/Chxta/status/1375535308096278537

We believe SMB's estimation was conservative. As of today, several road users can confirm that a trip from Badagry Roundabout to Iganmu during rush hour take at least 7 hours.

From Badagry to Iganmu is 58.3 kilometres and should ideally not last beyond 2 hours to travel.

Now back to the demarcation of the road we did earlier. Let's start with Iganmu to Mile 2 corridor.

The rail track in this section of the road has been laid. However flyovers and bridges as while the road are in various states of incompletion.

This corridor is perhaps the biggest open-air toilet in the world. the tall grasses that have overgrown the rail track provide good cover for residents of neighbourhoods around the area, homeless people and miscreants to defecate in the middle of the road.

A stench of excrement and disease perpetually hangs over the area.

"A haven of vehicular traffic and crime" is perhaps the best way to describe the Mile 2 - Okokomaiko corridor. Road users spend long hours in traffic at this corridor. A large part of the road from Maza-Maza to Abule Osun has been taken over by tankers and articulated vehicles.

Residents of Festac Town, Agboju, Amuwo sometimes leave their vehicles on the road as even exit routes from the road are completely blocked by tankers and trailers.

Check quoted tweet for the rest of the thread