WORKERS under the aegis of the Ogun State chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) on Wednesday blocked the Lagos-Abeokuta expressway by occupying it with a protest over the deplorable state of the highway blocking vehicular traffic for over three hours.
The NLC had given notice of the occupation of the highway more than three weeks ago and had on a daily basis run a countdown of their act up to Tuesday, October 26, 2021 when it stressed that workers would completely block the road beginning Wednesday, October 27.
At the protest which began at Sango, workers carried placards with various inscriptions like, “Ogun People are Suffering,” “Enough of Bad Governance,” “Hear Our Cries,” “Dapo Repair Our Roads, It is Our Right,” “Dapo Abiodun, Let Us Enjoy the Dividends of Democracy in Ogun,” and “Dapo, this Suffering is Too Much,” among others.
Comrade Emmanuel Bankole, the Chairman of the Ogun State Council of NLC, said their initial plan was to shut down the road but the efforts of the state government caused them to rescind their decision.
“Ordinarily, the decision was to shut down this place entirely, but the efforts that we have seen by the state government, the place will not be shut down,” Comrade Bankole said.
He added: “We are sensitive; we are not here to inflict pain on the citizens of the state. The citizens are already in pain. We are not here to add to it but to make a statement loud and clear that we won’t allow them to make a mess of us, just like Raji Fashola coming here to tell us that work would start immediately and nothing was done for more than two months.
“This is unacceptable to us and we are ready to take action.
“Our people are on ground here to monitor the state of progress. We have our networks all over the state. We would not allow them to come and do window-dressing and leave this place. We want to be monitoring day to day progress on the road, I can assure our people about that.”
Comrade Bankole also expressed the disappointment of the workers are Babtunde Raji Fashola, Minister of Works. He said: “21 days ago, we were here. We gave an ultimatum to the government that we are not pleased with the state of the roads; particularly the Minister of Works coming here to promise that palliative works will commence immediately and several weeks after nothing was done. That was why the 21 days ultimatum was given.
“Interestingly, a few days ago, they started some work. We can see some loads of granites by the state government. But this is not yet what we asked for. The minister was here and he promised to commence an immediate palliative; that is yet to happen.
“As such, Mr Babatunde Raji Fashola, for coming to lie to the citizens of Ogun State, he is being declared persona non grata in Ogun State. We are declaring him an enemy of Ogun State. We don’t want to see him in Ogun State for coming to fool and deceive us that palliative works will commence and nothing was done.
“We saw what is on ground which is the effort of the state government. The federal government cannot be collecting all the money and be inflicting pains on us. That’s why we are here to make the statement loud and clear that Babatunde Raji Fashola, the ministry of works and also the FERMA in Ogun State are being declared persona non grata.”
