Lagos Begins 35-Day Repair of the Lekki–Epe Expressway: Residents Ask, “Thirty-Five Days of What, Exactly?”

If you live on the Lekki axis, you do not need to read this article. You are already inside it. You have been inside it since morning. You are inside it now, in the back seat, eating your lunch.

The Lagos State Government has announced a 35-day rehabilitation of damaged sections of the Lekki–Epe Expressway. Thirty-five days. Not “a few weeks”. Not “very soon”. Thirty-five. A very confident number. Anybody who has ever driven from Ajah to the Island knows that the only thing in Lekki that has a fixed duration is the time you will arrive late.

The affected areas are the stretch from Bonny Camp to Admiralty Way Junction, and the section around Victoria Garden City. Two places, which means that on the map it is just two small circles. In real life, those two circles will be the centre of a traffic jam so large that people will start selling suya inside it. Business owners are already planning. There will be hawkers, a prayer meeting, probably a wedding, and a small church that starts on the third day.

The government has promised diversions and traffic officers. LASTMA will help to manage the traffic. I am sure they will. A man in a yellow vest will stand there with his whistle and wave you left, then wave the car behind you right, and you will both pray with the same sincerity.

Then came the line that made me stop. One official said road signs installed for the work have been stolen within days, and asked residents to help identify who is doing it. My friend, they are stealing the road signs of a road under repair. A thief in Lagos has no fear. He sees a diversion sign, a metal pole and a sheet of paint, and he says, “This one will pay my rent.” So the sign that tells you “Go left” is already in somebody’s shop on Lagos Island. You are expected to find the diversion by instinct, like a pigeon.

In fairness, the government has done this before. This same expressway had a 64-day plan earlier in the year, and one section was finished early, in 27 days instead of 41. Early! I want to give them their flowers. But let me say this gently: you cannot finish early on one road and expect people to forget every other road where “completion” is a rumour.

So here is the survival guide. Leave your house at four in the morning, or do not leave at all. Fill your tank, charge your phone, and bring a snack and a very good podcast. If you drive a car with no air conditioning, I am sorry. If you drive a motorbike, you will arrive early, but you may not reach.

Thirty-five days. We will count them together, one gridlock at a time. And on day thirty-six, if the road is open, we will call it a miracle. If it is not, we will call it “phase two”.