6 years in a traffic jam

Good day lovely people . How beautiful it is to write to y'all once again. I really thank God for this wonderful opportunity every day. And of course to my amazing friends here, my heart is always full of gratitude. Y'all are the best.

Meet my amazing and magnanimous sponsors

So, recently I was listening to the news recap on my favorite radio station and I heard something that really held my attention and got me really wondering for some minutes.

It goes thus:" if you have been living in lagos for 55 years, then you must have already spend 6 years of your life in the traffic jam"

Now, for my fellow Nigerian folks, you might not see this as a big surprise. But for the information of my non- Nigerian friends, Lagos is a city in Nigeria. It is the most populous and the most popular city in west Africa and by extension Africa. It is also the commercial hub and the most industrialized city.

As a result of these, Lagos is very unique and despite the high cost of living, alot of people from other parts of the country crave to come to this city because they believe it is a land full of opportunities Also, there alot of multinational firms namely; nestle, Pfizer, unilever, PZ , et.al are concentrated in Lagos more than any part of the country.

Due to this continual influx of people coupled with the fact that it is not a very large city, the traffic conditions in Lagos city is one of the most terrible in the world.

Consequently, its large citizenry had also lead to rise in the number of private vehicles. Also, the countless number of commercial buses that cater for the transport need of the large populace makes the Lagos traffic a living nightmare for many.

And since the city is in a developing nation, the transport system is not very efficient as majority of roads are plagued with potholes. It becomes terrible during the rainy season as a lot of vehicles gets stuck on their way.

If not because of the physical exertion involved, a lot of people would have preferred "trekking"( walking) to their destination everyday. For Godsake, how could one spend as much as three hours in a traffic for a journey of less than an hour?

You could even watch the whole episodes of the "squid games" and your vehicle haven't yet moved an inche. And as soon as you barely get out from one hold-up, you are being greeted by a more awful one, few minutes later.

The ban on the use of commercial motorcycles complicated things the more. Motorcycles are more flexible than cars and buses as they could navigate through the traffic easily. They can even meander through shorter and narrow routes that a larger vehicle dare not pass through.

Before the ban,Alot of car owners wouldn't mind leaving their cars at home everyday and hopping on the back of a motorcycle so long as they can get to their destination on time.

A family relative who resides there revealed that every morning, he wakes up around 4:30am and leaves for work at exactly 5:am. But as a result of the hellish traffic , he arrives at his office at around 9:00am. Due to sheer weariness and fatigue, he settles his crown and shoulders on his desk for around ten minutes before he could start the day's work. As a matter of fact, the young man is quite certain than his health is gradualy going down the hill.

Even though, he makes a lot of money, but due to the stress of both work and traffic, he looks quite older than his brothers and cousins living at the countryside and other less successful cities. He has been advised to resign from the job after saving some money and retire to a less buzzing city, then start a business there.

The return journey is even more terrible as alot of people would also be returning home at the time. closing from the office around 5:00pm and arriving home at 10:00 pm , sometimes 11:00pm (depending on the range between your residence and your workplace). And this cycl e continues on a daily basis. On weekends and on Sundays, the traffic situation might even be worse, since a lot of people would be on their way to their places of worship and other social gathering.

To say the least, this is nothing short of a punishment for commuters. In other cities, the distance between the two points wouldn't be more than twenty to thirty minutes.

And as bad as it is, I heard that the Lagos traffic is not even close to that of Mumbai in india! Lagos traffic is not even among the top ten in the world!

*******************************

Thank you so much for taking your time out to read my work.

Yours lovely

💗💗💗💗💗

bilqees.