While driving one night in Festac Town, a federal housing estate in the Amuwo-Odofin Local Government Area of Lagos State, the unexpected happened to Ifedayo Matthew, a resident who has lived there for over forty years.
His car ran into a ditch in one of the areas in Festac Town notorious for bad roads. Although Matthew came out unscathed, his car did not.
He lost his car’s tyre, and his engine was damaged due to the impact.
“I was driving along 2nd Avenue, coming in from Alakija towards Agboju and I ran into a very deep ditch, and lost my tyre in the process. Not only that, my engine swamped and got damaged along with the gear. There was no vulcaniser or mechanic to assist me in fixing it,” he told FIJ on Saturday.
Matthew could not abandon his car because he feared miscreants would further damage it and run away with some of its parts. So, he spent hours pushing the car with the help of his younger brother to get it to a safe place.
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23 Road, opposite Mobil Filling Station.
In the heart of Festac Town lies roads riddled with potholes and ditches. Many roads in the community, which date as far back as 1977, have become what residents describe as a shadow of their past.
ROAD ACCIDENTS THRIVE HERE
Matthew’s experience is not unusual.
It captures the plight of many residents who wait on the government to repair the damaged roads which impose damages costing them money for unanticipated car repairs.
First Avenue.
Although it rained the day before FIJ’s visit to Festac Town on October 6, the potholes held puddles of rainwater on some sections of the roads as souvenirs.
FIJ saw some drivers avoiding the damaged sections of the road like a plague and driving on the walkways reserved for pedestrians.
Hardly was there any long stretch of road from First Avenue to Seventh Avenue devoid of potholes and ditches.
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Opposite 201 Road junction.
FIJ learnt from other residents of the community that the bad roads were catalysts for accidents.
Akinbolu Akinniyi, a young graduate born and raised in Festac Town, attributed the deplorable condition of the roads to lack of maintenance.
Second Avenue.
“The roads in Festac have deteriorated significantly. It started deteriorating gradually and has worsened because of a lack of maintenance. They would not have gotten this bad if they had patched the roads when they needed patching. The conditions of the roads kept deteriorating as the years went by with no repairs done on many of the roads,” Akinniyi told FIJ.
Like Matthew, Akinniyi has had a bad experience on a section of a road in Festac Town and now nurses fear for some of the roads.
Fourth Avenue.
In early 2024, Akinniyi, a corps member at the time, almost got into an accident on a commercial motorcycle after the driver hit a large piece of stone used to cover a pothole.
“I was returning home from my place of primary assignment. On getting to the Fourth Avenue road by the Fifth Avenue junction, the driver and I almost landed on the ground and were close to sustaining bruises. My trousers got torn beyond repair,” said Akinniyi.
“I dread passing the road from First Gate down to 22 Road, Fourth Avenue leading to Fifth Avenue as well as the road leading to Sixth Avenue from the bridge. I don’t like those roads because they are bad for motorists and are usually worse when it rains.”
Fourth Avenue.
He added that he has witnessed accidents on some of these bad roads.
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Olawale Matimiloju, another resident who has resided in Festac Town for over two decades, told FIJ he has had an ugly experience on one of the bad roads in the community.
“The roads in Festac get terrible by the day. One night in 2023, I bumped into a pothole while driving. I did not know there was a pothole there. Accidents happen quite often on those bad roads. You see people gather because of accidents. These accidents most often result from drivers trying to manoeuvre their way around the terrible roads,” Matimiloju told FIJ on Saturday.
A TUSSLE BETWEEN AMUWO-ODOFIN LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND THE FEDERAL HOUSING AUTHORITY
Established in 1977 by the Federal Military Government, Festac Town was constructed to house the participants of the Second World Festival of Black Arts and Culture of 1977 (Festac ‘77).
The festival was a gathering of people across the world who converged in Nigeria, the host country, to celebrate African culture. The area now known as Festac was a large expanse of swampy land.
After the festival, the Federal Military Government converted it into a federal housing estate under the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) and allocated the houses to civil servants through a balloting system.
Fifth Avenue junction by 4th Avenue.
Nathaniel Soaga, a pensioner who was a staff of the Nigerian Railway Corporation at the time, was one of the civil servants who won the ballots and got an apartment in Festac.
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The pensioner recounts how the community has fallen from grace and lost all the features that made the community one of the most sought-after housing estates.
FIJ learnt from residents that blocks of flats in the community had telephones provided by the government, pipe-borne water from the government flowed into every home without residents having to drill boreholes, and the streets were always tarred and devoid of potholes.
Years later, the community fondly called “small London” became a shadow of its past self.
“The infrastructure in Festac has gotten bad over the years. All the facilities put in place from the beginning have either been damaged or stopped working,” Soaga lamented.
He attributed the deplorable state of the roads and other damaged facilities to the tussle between the Federal Housing Authority and the Amuwo-Odofin Local Government over which agency should be saddled with the responsibility of maintaining the community’s infrastructure.
“Festac is a housing estate of the Federal Government under the Federal Housing Authority. We pay tenancy charges and land-use charges to the FHA every year, but we don’t know what they use the money for. The local government are also shying away from repairing the roads because they believe it is a property of the Federal Government,” Soaga added.
In August, Oyetunde Ojo, the Managing Director and Chief Executive of the FHA, promised community residents that the agency would commence rehabilitation of the roads, which would be in phases.
According to Ojo, “Restoring the glory of Festac Town has gone beyond mere rhetorics, but will now be matched with visible actions.”
Two months after the FHA made this promise, many of the roads in Festac Town lay decrepit.
FIJ emailed the FHA on Friday, but they did not respond.
FIJ also called Valentine Buraimoh, the chairman of Amuwo-Odofin Local Government Chairman, and sent him text messages on Friday. Buraimoh had not responded at press time.
The post Accidents Thrive in Festac as Potholes Claim Ownership of Dilapidated Roads appeared first on Foundation For Investigative Journalism.