A long stretch of vehicles is caught in a traffic jam on the busy Murtala Muhammed Way in Lagos, where desperate drivers struggle to wriggle out of the chaos to get home.
The weather is bad. It is raining and flooding.
And motorists, travelling in the opposite direction, form a new lane and drive against traffic on the one-way highway. The result is a log-jam.
Angry drivers, whose rights of way have been blocked, hoot repeatedly. Nobody seems to care. And no vehicle moves. Traffic officers are reduced to bystanders, helpless to clear the road.
It is a common sight on most of the roads and highways in Lagos. Bad roads and bad driving have hindered free flow of traffic in this city of 12-million people — the sixth largest in the world.
Brazil’s soccer legend, Pele, during a visit to Nigeria some years back, described Lagos’s traffic, where he got stuck, as ”chaotic”.
The congestion on the roads, known locally as ‘Go-Slow’, reached such magnitude in the early 1980s that it forced the government to introduce the system of ‘odd’ and ‘even’ numbers in which vehicles whose plate numbers began with an odd number was allowed to ply the roads only on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Those beginning with even numbers plied them on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
The system did not work for long. Some unscrupulous wealthy people resorted to the use of several cars registered in both odd and even numbers, leading to the collapse of the system.
More than 42-billion naira ($420-million) is lost annually in Lagos to traffic congestion, according to a 2001 research.
Now, the new traffic regulations, introduced recently, are expected to reduce the menace.
”Any motorist who commits traffic offence will not only pay a fine of 25 000 naira ($250) but will also be made to undergo a psychiatric test in a government hospital,” said Yemi Odubela of the Lagos State Transport Management Authority (Lastma).
”There must be some element of insanity for anyone to drive against traffic on a one-way road. This kind of enforcement will make drivers think twice before making an offence which usually results in chaotic traffic jams,” Odubela says.
Within a week of the new laws, 300 motorists were booked for reckless driving, according to Odubela.
”They were each fined 25 000 naira ($250). In addition, all those who were caught were given letters of reference to hospitals where they are expected to obtain a certificate of mental fitness”.
The new measures, if strictly enforced, may curb bad driving habit in Lagos, motorists believe.
Some 35 041 accidents, involving 49 992 vehicles, occurred in Lagos between 1993 and 2002, with 26 404 casualties, according to statistics released by the Lagos State road safety commission in April.
”Many road users in Nigeria are insane. Some of them drive against traffic on a one-way road and claim right of way. If you waste time they ram into your car,” said Shina Loremikan, a human rights activist in Lagos.
He said: ”It is unfortunate that 25 000 naira and a letter of fitness from a psychiatric hospital are being demanded as fines in the new measures to curb the excesses of road users. But the fines will curb traffic jams as nobody is happy to part with 25 000 naira or go to hospital for mental fitness test”.
Loremikan suggests that before a license is granted to any driver, he or she should undergo a psychiatric test.
Before the new measures, fines for traffic offence ranged between 2 000 naira ($20) and 5 000 naira ($50).
”A bribe of 500 naira ($5) used to end the ordeal of an offender,” recalls a motorist in Lagos.
Muiz Banire, Lagos State commissioner for Transport, says half the new traffic officers, hired by the department of transport, are mostly university graduates, who have been trained to ”shun” bribes.
”Of the 500 persons employed and trained as traffic officers in 2001, 250 of them are graduates of universities and higher national diploma holders, while the remaining hold the ordinary national diploma which was the least entry qualification,” he said.
In its editorial on Wednesday, the influential Guardian newspaper criticised the introduction of a fine of 25 000 naira as penalty for traffic offences. It also described the insistence on a psychiatric examination as demeaning and unnecessarily humiliating.
”Whatever fines may be imposed on offenders should be designed to reform such person and improve the flow of traffic. On no account should the objective be to intimidate and frustrate the public. The fine of 25 000 naira gives the impression that Lastma is more interested in revenue collection rather than traffic management,” the paper argued. – Sapa-IPS