Pulse Opinion: The potholes in Lagos are not your mates

For no fault of mine, I can now tell you how many potholes you can find from Cele Bus Stop to Gbagada. Yeah, I counted them all after a tyre exploded when the car plunged into a crater-sized pothole near Charly Boy bus-stop.

I can also describe the depth of potholes in Ikeja, Lekki and Victoria Island, with uncanny precision. I can actually tell you for free, where to find the worst potholes in Lagos and why you shouldn’t be driving too fast on certain routes at night, because you could plunge into a pothole that could result in an accident. 

Yeah, I'm that good with this thing at the moment. You see, I am now a pothole expert in this city and I’m so certain that I’m not alone. 

There are thousands of Lagosians who have now perfected the art of committing potholes to memory. They can tell you exactly where a dangerous pothole is. They can tell you how deep a pothole on a particular stretch of road is. In Lagos, the fear of the pothole for the motorist, has become the beginning of wisdom.

Lagos is a peculiar mess. A road that has been fixed today can go bad tomorrow. A combination of poor quality materials, the wrong company, corruption and ineptitude continues to ensure that road contractors get away with murder.

I reside in the Aguda/Ijesha axis of mainland Lagos. Some days, I have had to use Omilani Street. It’s a horrific stretch of road that has been left to condemn cars and tyres for years. Ditto, Ilamoye Street in the same neighborhood. The roads in Ijesha are an eyesore. As a matter of fact, most inner city roads in Lagos are an eyesore. And most potholes have been left unattended to for years, you wonder what exactly the plan of the Lagos state government is when it comes to road maintenance.

In a city like Lagos, you should be maintaining the roads round-the-clock and not wait for whole portions to fail before making a song and dance out of fixing them.

I have had the opportunity of bringing up the pothole subject with Governor-elect Babajide Sanwo-Olu and Deputy Governor-elect, Obafemi Hamzat at separate fora. And they have both wondered why the asphalt plants in Lagos, set up for road maintenance round-the-clock, haven’t been put to use on incumbent Governor Akinwunmi Ambode’s watch. Which probably suggests that they could do things differently, although we have to wait to find that out. 

In the final analysis, it is a shame that Lagos—for all its claim to mega city status—has perhaps some of the worst road surfaces in the country. Infrastructure is at the very heart of progressive, workable, smart cities. If Lagos can’t make roads smoother and pot-hole free, it’s entire road map (pun intended) and progressive agenda is a joke.

By the way, I have a few more potholes to memorize as I head to Badagry next weekend, if you don’t mind.