Conspicuous road signage devoid of ambiguity put in place by relevant authorities should naturally dot all roads to guide drivers’ movement and help them not to fall foul of the law. But across many routes in Lagos, the road signs are damaged, awkwardly placed or not available at all.
Since the possibility of some drivers plying some roads for the first time is plausible, only clear road signs are the antidotes for innocent drivers not to fall foul of the law.
Yet law enforcement agents who know that the signs are misleading or missing, rather than stand at points to help direct drivers and motorists against going against the law will hide somewhere and rush out to arrest the motorists for driving beyond points he or she should not.
But rather than stand at the junction to direct drivers, they will not. Of note is that in some of the routes, the traffic officers do not enforce the law when commercial buses drive through but are always quick to jump out of their hideout it is private vehicles.
For instance, inward Oshodi, on the Apapa-Oshodi Expressway, around Iyana-Itire, there are usually not less than four local council officials hiding to arrest motorists, yet the road sign is not only misleading, the road is awkward.
Also, there are not less than three of such points within Oshodi where there are not road signs to direct motorists on places not to drive beyond.The first is while descending the Apakun Bridge; the second is midway into Boladale Street while the third is the Ewe Nla junction by Union Bank on the Apapa-Oshodi Expressway.
Similarly, around the Alausa secretariat, the sign limiting commercial vehicles on Johnson Avenue is not conspicuous as a result many commercial drivers are often misleading.
But in each of these spots, policemen and traffic officers that included Lagos State Traffic Management Officers (LASTMA) and Central Business District officials are constantly lurking around to arrest motorists for driving beyond the points they should not rather than the officers standing at points to help motorists navigate through since there is no signs to direct them.
A driver, Alani Samson, said that the irony is that with just a law enforcement officer standing at the point where motorists are about to drive beyond would have done the job and a lot of motorists will not go against the law.
“Instead about four officers and a vehicle usually parked would be deployed. Is this not a waste of resources of the state and tax payers’ money? The time and money motorists expended would also have been saved with just an officer standing at the right place to direct motorists.”
Responding on behalf of government to the abnormally, the Deputy Director, Public Affairs, Lagos State Ministry of Transport, Mrs. Bolanle Adunola Ogunlola, said the government always put warning signs on all roads.
She, however, pointed it out that in some of these areas the road signs to warn drivers were once erected there got removed by unscrupulous people who perpetrated the act at night. She further said that in places where there are no signs, the government would welcome information on such areas to affix signs.
