Gov. Fashola Tells Auto Dealers To Stop Using Road Sides As Showrooms

Gov. Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State on Friday warned
traders, especially auto dealers to stop making sections of the
highways their showrooms.

Fashola gave the warning when he inaugurated the
reconstructed Kodesho Road and Simbiat Abiola Way in
Ikeja.

The governor 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.

He urged the residents to protect all projects from vandals.

Via: Vanguard/ NAN