Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State has warned traders, especially auto dealers to stop making sections of the highways their showrooms.
Fashola who gave the warning when he inaugurated the reconstructed Kodesho Road and Simbiat Abiola Way in Ikeja, said trading constricted the roads thereby causing traffic gridlock and great inconveniences to users.
He stressed that staying too long in the gridlock had serious health implications as it could lead to accidents, hypertension and stress.
“As we hand over these roads, I think we need to talk to ourselves. We build roads to let us get to our businesses; our places of work quickly and to make movement easier.
“But some residents covert the roads to places they trade and as long as we continue to trade on them, we defeat the purpose for which they were built.
“As long as we turn our roads to shopping malls where everybody buys in traffic, we all pay the price because you all know that such causes stress and hypertension.
“Now, I see those who sell cars on Mobolaji Bank Anthony Way and other areas have turned sections of the highways into showrooms.
“I am using this opportunity to tell them to get land where they can display and sell their cars. If we want to be great people, we don’t turn our highways into car shops” , he said.
Fashola reminded the traders that Lagos was fast becoming a megacity and urged them to sell their goods in the market, shopping malls and not on the highways.
The governor said the delivery of the two strategic roads was the fulfillment of his electoral promise to improve infrastructure in all parts of the state.
He added that work was on going in over 200 inner-city roads across the state, adding that the State Government had awarded contracts for the rehabilitation of additional 25 roads.
He urged Lagos people to pay their taxes to enable the government to do more.
The Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure, Dr Obafemi Hamzat, said that the roads were major routes to decongest traffic in Ikeja.
Hamzat said that 274 new jobs were created during the reconstruction of the two roads and urged the residents to protect all projects from vandals.
