Commuters were left stranded on both sides of Lagos-Ibadan Expressway on Wednesday 7 July 2021 due to gridlock whose cause commuters weren’t sure of. On the part of the road inward Lagos from Ogun, the traffic was mostly felt from Ibafo to a point close to Warewa Area.

Motorists leaving Lagos to Ogun had to deal with traffic from Lagos State Secretariat Alausa down to Warewa. Commuters who couldn’t afford to waste time on the road resorted to commercial motorcycle riders, popular known as Okada, to beat the traffic; while some motorists drove their vehicles off the expressway and through untarred paths to escape the traffic.

See photos below....

Whenever I hear Lagos IBADAN expressway, it's either gridlock or accident.
May God help us.

Na to carry stove follow body..wen e jam like dat.na to come out of the car, begin prepare dinner.to chop am wen i reach house

Why is Julius Berger taking so long to complete this project? Not to mention the highly unprofessional approach they have been using:

1. Rather than working on first creating the new lanes, they instead shut off one lane and use concrete blocks to divide the remaining lane for use by both inward/outgoing traffic.

2. Instead of grading alternative side roads, they actually block them off, thereby worsening the traffic.

3. They also block off previously existing U-Turns, forcing drivers to drive very long distances to find turning points.

4. Rather than putting sufficient men/equipment to work on continuous stretches, they instead spread thinly and work at various far-apart points, thereby ensuring gridlock at multiple points along the road.

5. When the frequent accidents occur (as a direct consequence of their unprofessional approach), they are completely unconcerned. They have tow trucks and cranes but will not make available to remove broken down or accidented vehicles.

A journey of 40 minutes from say - Mowe - now takes as much as 4 to 5 hours. Imagine the economic cost!

This expressway is estimated to serve 500,000 commuters daily, making it possibly the busiest highway in Nigeria.

Since July 2013 when former President Goodluck Jonathan flagged off reconstruction of the Expressway, work has moved at a terribly slow pace (the concession earlier granted to Bi-Courtney Consortium on 8 May 2009, was terminated in 2012 due to poor performance).

The 2013 reconstruction contract was awarded jointly to Julius Berger Nigeria and Reynolds Construction Company for N167bn. RCC completed its own initial Ibadan stretch since 2018, but Julius Berger is dragging on the Lagos stretch, with consequent gridlock, stress, traffic robbery, economic cost, accidents and needless loss of lives.

Do we have any Federal Ministry of Works Engineers monitoring this project?
There are global best practices in every field of human endeavour.

This is NOT good enough!