Much Ado About "Ogun Standard"....And A Plethora Of Disorder....
I have written severally about this elderly relation...whose rare talent at keeping me perpetually exasperated is no less than that of the environment she has chosen to inhabit. First to catch the notice of the unwary observer while transiting from Lagos into Ogun State of Nigeria is the brisk manner in which order gives way to disorder.
The traveller is confronted with this sudden transmutation as soon as he crosses the invisible border between both Yoruba states in the southwestern part of the nation...as the unbelievable level of anarchy intrudes into his consciousness!
And cleanliness gives way to filth....
Medians and kerbs beautifully adorned with flowers give way to humans shitting, pissing and trading side by side on the same filthy road....brazenly competing with motor vehicles for road space.
Commercial drivers picking up and dropping passengers at random....and waiting to call in passengers right in the middle of the expressway!
Okada riders playing deathly games on fast lanes as they dodge in and out of traffic! Hawkers and shanties everywhere! Yelling at incredibly high decibel to attract patronage!
CD vendors blaring cacophonous music from huge speakers competing with churches and mosques for riotous attention! Hawkers and preachers extending their "territorial jurisdictions" onto ragtag buses whose equally unkempt operators and uncivil passengers seem to complement one another in this "severest of assaults on the senses"!
And as you finally....somehow....navigate your punished self and vehicle into your target locale, you are further confronted....albeit confounded.....by this brick-maker who would rather arrange his "wares" right onto the middle of the rough terrain called road...such that motorists take turns in meandering thorough the tiny space he allows them...
So, as motorists take turns on this weird queue.....and as okada riders yell on you to get out of the way, you wonder if you are still living among human or lesser primates!
The general ambience is that of a jungle whose lion is absolutely bereft of ideas about how to rein in his subjects....
It pains my heart to observe repeatedly....that Okada riders and even drivers of personal cars tend to maintain certain tracks on these roads. These often muddy roads as found in high density slums are often transformed into an undulating terrain under the heavy weights of sand and gravel-bearing trucks which ply them especially during the rainy seasons.
These riders and drivers thus keep to s-shaped tracks thus posing great threats to the lives and limbs of pedestrians!
With Lagosians seeking for a change of government ostensibly to usher in this "Ogun Standard' in preference for the order that Governor Raji Fashola has brought into their lives, I am compelled to ask Governor Ibikunle Amosun....
....ignoring all this cacophony just to garner votes?!!!
Dr Tosin Akindele is a medical practitioner and public affairs analyst.