Journalist and performance poet, AKEEM LASISI, gets lost in nostalgia as a test-riding on Lagos Red Line train takes him through a part of the city he had lived for about 20 years, but which he left 14 years ago
While enjoying the smooth train ride, my spirit became a bit pompous. It told me that I, indeed, deserved to enjoy the beauty of Lagos because I had savoured its ugliness for years. Residents will remember that many roads across Lagos are now far better than they used to be. For instance, while Bola Tinubu as Governor worked much on Victoria Island, Ikoyi and Ikeja area roads, Babatunde Fashola, who succeeded him, entered the inner circles, including the Ifako-College area. His successor, Akinwunmi Ambode, also solved the naughty Abule-Egba jam by building an overhead bridge there, just as he liberated the Aboru/Command end. Now, Sanwo-Olu did not only complete the Pen Cinema Bridge, he has built several other ones, many inner roads in the zone and other parts of the Centre of Excellence, while the Red Line alone comes with a bumper package of five mega flyovers that have all been completed and are now in use.
Critics argue that Lagos governors ought to do far more based on the huge monies that enter the state’s coffers. Good. We should always push the political office holders to do better and even point out their inadequacies. This should, however, not mean we have to close our eyes to the things they have done. As the Yoruba say, yinní, yinní, k’ẹ́ni o ṣè’míì, meaning people are inspired to do more when they are adequately commended for feats they have performed. In this wise, on the gains of the Red Line project, a media expert, Uche Nnadozie, notes in an article that is is a big blessing to commuters.
“The governor (Sanwo-Olu) has commissioned built-to-specification overpasses at various traffic gridlock points along the route. These include Oyingbo, Tejuosho/Yaba, Mushin and Ikeja. With the overpasses, there is zero vehicular interference on the route, making movement faster with little human and vehicular interruption”, Nnadozie.
Anyway, Providence trips, as well as those to home lessons, in the past took me through Pen Cinema, Fagba and, at times, Puposola, as there used to be nasty traffic especially in mornings and nights. So, one had to look for alternatives. In terms of security, pick-pocketing was common especially in Oshodi and Agege. When GSM berthed, at some spots in Pen Cinema — the Cinema had not been sold/converted to an eatery and church then — goons used to grab phones through car windows and, I think, I once fell victim to this in the area. My Blackberry was snatched by one hell of a guy as his partner in crime diverted my attention to the passenger’s window. Armed robbery was also a major issue. It’s great that much of this menace has died down in Lagos. Even if there are other challenges the government is working on, robbery has been largely tamed, while, even with the banning of commercial bikes (okada) operation in Lagos, considerable sanity has returned to the transport realm. Molue is gone, okada is gone. BRT has been introduced, while the Blue and Red Line trains are also here.
I left the Ikeja, Iyana Ipaja, Agege, Ijaye/Agbado axis in 2010 but the memories of the place have never left me. If I thought they had left, they stormed back during the Red Line trip. While still in Ijaye, I went into another side hustle with another former colleague at Victory Grammar School, Ikeja, Soji Adesanmi. We rented an apartment around Ope-Ilu, close to Agbado Crossing, from which the train just departed. We opened a school, Cosmos Classic School. I was still at The PUNCH, while Adesanmi (SOJ) left a job to run the business. Of course, journalism also gave me room to be there in the mornings of about three days a week. That is one thing with the media: it can take your nights, weekends and even festivals, but it always gifts you some odd times.
This reminds me: when I newly moved to Powerline, Ijaiye, some neighbours used to gossip about me. They had observed that I never left home until around 11 am every day, but I would not return until late, late in the night. I could be home on Monday mornings, but on Sundays I would go to work. So, some of them concluded that I must be into an unusual business. Well, they were lenient enough not to declare that I was a thief. Rather, they whispered into one another’s ears that I must be an SSS (now DSS, i.e. Department of State Security) operative. While as Peter Obi is credited to have said, “I got the advice from a mad man”; I got my DSS info from a barber. It was later my neighbours in Ijaiye learnt that I was a journalist, a tag they then happily gave me, with both the young and old calling me journalist every now and then.
With the Red Line to and fro Agbado Crossing, how could I stop remembering those real-life stories of my growth? How would I not remember Cosmos Classic School: the little but promising dream that also unfortunately got derailed? The school ran into trouble when the roads around the Ope-Ilu/Agbado area, where it was located, collapsed due to erosion and neglect. That was around 2008. It was a proof that Ogun State communities neighbouring Lagos — like Alagbole, Akute, Lambe and Mowe-Ibafo — hardly get any developmental attention from their governors. Some of them usually say that the residents don’t pay taxes to them, a claim that has not really been engaged.
Well, at the time Cosmos was in Ope-Ilu, many residents of the affected area moved out, leaving our school too lonely and deserted. We struggled hard to maintain it, to weather the storm. We even moved from the place where we paid N700,000 per annum. The facility belonged to a brother of the late MKO Abiola (Muri) who also passed away about two years ago. Yet, things didn’t work out in the Itori, still Ogun State area, where we moved to. I think I have a big thesis waiting in the future on school business, based on my teaching and proprietorship experiences. Of course, since man no die, man no rotten, today, I am still in the business of education, to the extent of trying to grow another school.
Meanwhile, welcome back from Agbado, and from the winding journey to my endless past. On the significance of the Red Line intervention, Nnadozie writes: “The pleasure of having these train corridors is not so much about the job creation (which is important), but the multiplier effect on the environment, lives and livelihoods of the residents of Lagos and other visitors. Experts say, the rail system does not by itself make profit, rather, the improvement in transportation and making lives easier helps residents and users to improve their businesses and lives.
“It is not the indirect jobs that will naturally follow, but the faster, more affordable, less emission, great reduction in road accidents, rages, elimination of agbero (motor park touts)and standardisation of ticketing/fares through the Cowry card. For a state that grapples with traffic snarls, the immediate reduction in the traffic between Mile 2 and Lagos Island because of the Blue line railway is expected to be replicated on the Agbado Oyingbo corridor.
“With a higher population density, the red line corridor residents would heave a sigh of relief as LAMATA puts finishing touches on the roll off of the project. So far all the train terminals or stations are ready with state of the art furniture installed along the route.
“Also, the 37km-long railway would be extended from Oyingbo to join the red line somewhere around the Wole Soyinka Centre of Arts and Culture (formerly National Theatre) at Iganmu where the journey will cross the lagoon into Lagos Island. With these, communities in Alimosho, the largest LGA in Nigeria, together with Ifako-Ijaiye, Ojokoro, Agege, Iju, Ikeja would live longer and be healthier after they abandon their cars or buses to embrace less stressful means of metro transportation.
“Seeing how those in the Ojo, Amuwo Odofin, Surulere among others have benefited from the Blue Line with comfortable, air-conditioned coaches, those along the Red Line corridor can no longer wait to taste the Sanwo-Olu standard service delivery by September or shortly after. Indeed, Lagos is rising”!
Concluded