The Warewa and Arepo Communities in the Obafemi Owode Local Government Area of Ogun State, have made demands that pedestrian bridges and streetlights are installed for them, particularly as a result of the constant robbery on Lagos/Ibadan expressway.
They have also further requested that the U-turn at the Warewa area which used to be on that road, before Julius Berger commenced reconstruction work, should be restored.
These communities made their demands because of the rate at which they have witnessed different types of crimes and robbery on Lagos/Ibadan expressway.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, these miscreants attacked commuters and motorists and made away with their belongings.
The President of the Arepo Central Community Development Association, Bode Adefolu spoke to newsmen, Thursday, saying that they really needed the streetlights for reasons of safety.
Hear him: ‘We are not looking at that alone. We are also requesting pedestrian bridges at the Warewa and Arepo ends. A team came, I think sometime in February this year, to inspect the situation. They gave us assurance and agreed that we deserved to have pedestrian bridges. They said they would stop the one they were about to construct somewhere else and bring it to our community so we could cross the expressway safely.’
He explained that a little child was once knocked down by a motorist while trying to cross the expressway.
‘The tragic nature of that incident, the pain and the need to forestall such tragic events in the future, led to communities coming together to dig a tunnel for pedestrian traffic – initially. This was later expanded some months later to accommodate low vehicles. This had been done before Julius Berger started the construction of the Sagamu to Lagos section of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway,’ he added.
The Chairman of one of the security councils in Warewa, Olanrewaju Falade, stated that the Police were doing their best to curb the security problems of the area.
On his part, the Ogun State police Public Relations Officer, SP Abimbola Oyeyemi, confirmed that there was indeed a robbery on Lagos/Ibadan expressway on Wednesday and called on Julius Berger to illuminate the construction areas to prevent further robbery attacks, adding that the robbery attack took place because the miscreants realized that there was a small opportunity to commit crime.
The supervisor overseeing the Lagos-Sagamu area of the expressway, Wale Adebote, however stated that the construction work had no bearing with the robbery on Lagos-Ibadan expressway.
His words: ‘It is not the cause, but the behaviour of those around that place. The miscreants mingle with those who sell on the expressway and you can’t also be too sure about those who sell on the road.’
‘We are constructing around Otedola down to Seven-Up and we do not see such things. But that place (Longbridge/Arepo) is prone to attacks because a lot of people are living under the bridge.
‘We did some work around that Arepo area. We haven’t started working fully when drivers started blocking themselves and everywhere was blocked. When there was so much noise and our attention was drawn to it, we invited policemen, soldiers, and road safety officers there. That’s the behavioural pattern in that area.’
