By Olaseni O Egbeyemi
The tragic road accident involving Anthony Joshua, the world heavyweight boxing champion, which reportedly claimed the lives of two of his close associates, should serve as a serious wake up call to the Ogun State Government.
Beyond the personalities involved, the incident once again exposes the persistent dangers and structural failures along major transport corridors in Ogun State, particularly the Lagos Ibadan Expressway.
The unchecked presence of articulated trucks, fuel tankers, and long trailers, indiscriminately parked or stalled along Ogun State sections of the expressway, has reached an alarming level.
These vehicles routinely cause gridlock, fatal accidents, environmental hazards, and security concerns, especially across the Remo axis of Ogere, Sagamu, Ode-Remo, Sapade, and up to Ogunmakin.
More troubling is the growing security and social menace associated with these trailers and their operators. Reports of drug abuse, harassment, rape of roadside hawkers and food vendors, and violent night activities involving some drivers and motor boys have become common.
There are also widespread concerns about the unregulated transportation of youths from neighbouring countries into the South-West, using these long haul vehicles under little or no supervision.
This situation falls squarely within the constitutional responsibility of the Ogun State Government to ensure public safety, order, and welfare.
Governor Dapo Abiodun must urgently rise to this challenge by enforcing strict regulations on trailer movement, parking, and operations within the state’s corridors.
Immediate and Strategic Interventions Needed
Ogun State should establish a large, modern, and well secured trailer park strategically located off the expressway. This facility must be equipped with:
Adequate parking bays
Restrooms and welfare facilities
Security surveillance
Regulatory offices for transport enforcement agencies
Strengthened Security Architecture
Deploy joint security task forces involving the police, civil defence, road safety corps, and local vigilante structures to monitor trailer activities, especially at night.
The government should establish emergency response and first aid centres at critical points along the corridor, supported by:
Functional ambulances,
Trained paramedics
Rapid-response coordination units
There should be the enforce time based movement of vehicles with restrictions for heavy duty vehicles, especially during peak hours, and apply penalties for indiscriminate parking and traffic obstruction.
Beyond immediate safety measures, Ogun State must embrace sustainable transport alternatives. A state supported rail line running from Abeokuta through Onipepeye, Siun, Interchange, Ofada, Mowe, and down to Lagos would be a transformative project.
Such infrastructure would:
Reduce pressure on the Lagos Ibadan Expressway
Boost industrial logistics
Improve investor confidence
enhance regional integration and economic growth
This is the kind of forward looking development Ogun State urgently needs.
The energy and state resources currently being expended on pursuing critics and dissenting voices would be far better invested in life saving infrastructure, security, and people centered development.
Governance must be measured not by suppression of opposition, but by the protection of lives and the improvement of living conditions.
Governor Dapo Abiodun still has the opportunity to write his name positively in history by acting decisively on this matter.
Ogun State cannot continue to pay the price of neglect with human lives.
This is not politics. This is governance.
This is not criticism. This is a call to action
*Aare Olaseni Ọ Egbeyemi writes from Lagos