State Neglect is Murder: And the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway is the Weapon.

Punch

There are few things more grotesque than watching a nation normalize carnage. Today, I witnessed yet another gruesome crash on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway—a stretch of road so routinely soaked in blood, it might as well be renamed the Expressway of Death. And yet, both the federal and Lagos/Oyo state governments have responded with the same callous, zombified indifference that has become the hallmark of governance in Nigeria: performative press statements, empty promises, and photo-ops in starched agbadas while the people die in real time.

Let’s be clear: the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway is not merely a death trap—it is a government-sanctioned massacre in slow motion. We are not dealing with unfortunate accidents. We are confronting the consequences of state violence through negligence. Every life lost on that road is not an act of fate—it is an indictment.

Owned by the federal government and overseen in part by the Lagos and Oyo state administrations, this so-called lifeline has become a corridor of chaos. On the Ibadan stretch alone—from Toll Gate to Iwo Road—pedestrians are forced into a daily ritual of Russian roulette. No pedestrian bridges. No proper crossings. Just crumbling concrete, reckless drivers, and a government that treats the poor like expendable extras in a dystopian horror show.

You can’t talk about “modern infrastructure” while children are leaping across eight lanes of speeding traffic to get to school. You can’t praise economic corridors while the bodies of traders, students, and fruit sellers lie twisted in the median because the state couldn’t be bothered to build a simple footbridge.

And don’t insult us with your “smart city” propaganda when communities like Soka, Boluwaji, and Sanyo must rely on makeshift wooden planks to cross deadly drains at the road’s median. That is not innovation. That is institutional rot, hidden behind the fig leaf of ribbon-cutting ceremonies and media manipulation.

We are told that President Bola Tinubu’s administration is “transforming infrastructure.” We are told Governor Seyi Makinde is a beacon of technocratic governance. Tell that to the families who will bury their loved ones this week because the federal and state governments refuse to treat pedestrian infrastructure as a human right.

It is no longer enough to blame drivers or “unforeseen circumstances.” This is a crisis of leadership. Of priorities. Of conscience.

Let us call things by their true names:

• This is manslaughter by omission.

• This is negligence masquerading as governance.

• This is injustice with an asphalt signature.

We demand immediate and uncompromising action:

• Pedestrian bridges must be constructed without delay at Soka Junction, Sanyo, Boluwaji, and all high-risk crossings.

• The Minister of Works, Dave Umahi, must face public scrutiny for his ministry’s grotesque oversight.

• Governor Makinde must stop hiding behind press releases and show up where his people are dying.

• And the federal government must stop treating infrastructure like a playground for elite contractors and start treating it like the lifeline it is.

Every day we delay, the expressway claims more lives. And every life lost is another line of indictment against a political class too insulated to care.

This highway is paved with blood. And until there is justice, every crash is a crime scene—with the fingerprints of Abuja and Agodi all over it.

LaBode Obanor

Political Commentator | Social Justice Advocate | Writer

April 23, 2025

Abuja & Washington, DC

The views expressed in this essay are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the League for Social Justice.