The Lagos State Government on Tuesday sealed off the premises of some major commercial transport companies in Jibowu, along Ikorodu Road as it commenced enforcement of the relocation order of inter-state buses to Ojota.
Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Transportation, Olufemi Salami, on behalf of the state government, ordered the closure with the approval of the Acting Commissioner for Transport, Anofiu Elegushi.
The transport company premises shut included Chisco Transport, Ifex Express Limited, GUO Transport, God Is Good (GIG) and Peace Mass Transport, with the directive to vacate immediately and stop further operation of cargo and passenger services around Jibowu.
According to Elegushi, the action was a follow-up enforcement of a directive earlier issued this year by Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, to all transporters operating around Jibowu and the stretch of Ikorodu Road, to relocate their operations to Ojota, where the government had provided alternative accommodation for operations.
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According to him, “The Ojota luxury bus station has been concession in an agreement with government to build it, with modern facilities, provided. Therefore, all the transporters are required to comply with the government’s directive to relocate to the new station.”
Elegushi, however, said that the transporters would be expected to pay the concessionaire, to use the new bus station, but that the amount to be paid would be negotiated.
Earlier, the commissioner at a stakeholders’ meeting in Alausa, Ikeja, declared government’s readiness to enforce the Road Traffic Law, saying that “the state government in its resolve to take the economy to higher heights with the goal of making it the third largest on the continent will not sit back and encourage the flagrant disobedience of the law of the state.”
