Residents of Soliyi, a densely populated community in Kosofe Local Government Area of Lagos State, are living a nightmare due to the gridlock on the only access road into the community caused by construction by Deeper Life Bible Church.
If the Lagos State government fails to act fast before April this year, the residents of Soliyi, a densely populated community in Kosofe Local Government Area of the state, would have been successfully cut off from the state. Come April, the Deeper Life Bible Church is expected to complete and put to use its edifice currently under construction on Ayodele Okeowo Street, the only access road to the community. At the moment, life has not been easy for the people residing in the community. The residents are stuck in traffic for hours on this Ayodele Okeowo Street on a daily basis. And if by April, no prompt action is taken to construct alternative access roads in the community, the pains they are currently going through would have heightened and will definitely become catastrophic.
With over 500,000 population comprising mostly career men and women working in public and private organisations, as well as traders, Soliyi has two communities making it up, namely: Soliyi 1 and Soliyi 2.
It is bound to the North by Gbagada General Hospital and to the South by a canal separating the community from Ogudu. Its neighbouring communities are: Araromi and Ifako. Soliyi has about six estates occupied by the middle class in the community namely: Peace Estate, Josodat, Shedaii, Medina, Asa, and Sosanya Estates.
The community houses the Gospel Apostolic Church; St. Gerald Catholic Church, and the Deeper Life Bible Church (both its National Headquarters and two other branches), which are contributing to the difficulty being experienced by residents of the community. Also located in the community, are the Chevron Staff Club, Chevron Hospital and Library. It was learnt that the company assisted the community to build the Ayodele Okeowo Street.
With a population of this magnitude, the only access road available to the residents has now been taken over by the structures being constructed by the Deeper Life Bible Church. Motorists, commercial motorcyclists and even pedestrians complain about the level of uneasiness when coming in and out of the community. The daily log-jam on Ayodele Okeowo Street has resulted to some residents packing out of the community for not being able to cope with the difficult situation.
“It’s always like this every morning when we’re trying to get out of here to go to work,” Mr. Wale Adeyemi, a resident of the community told THISDAY. “There is always traffic here caused by this structure being set up by Deeper Life Bible Church. So government needs to create more roads in this community to ease the traffic here,” Adeyemi
said.
At about 8:30a.m., Mr. Elvis and his little children going to school were still stuck in the hellish traffic. According to him, they had been in traffic since 7a.m. “We’re actually suffering in this area. Coming in the evening is terrible; going out in the morning is worrisome. You can imagine I’m taking the kids to school and since 7a.m. we’ve been on this road, and it’s almost 8:30a.m. now. We’re going through stress here. We beg the government to come and help us create alternative roads so that we don’t continue suffering like this,” he
said.
Osan Mudashiru, a commercial motorcyclist operating in the area who lamented about the traffic congestion on the road, said the situation had led to a drop in his daily earnings. “When trucks bringing materials for the church park here, there will be no way to pass again, everywhere will be blocked. I don’t like what is happening here. We want Lagos State government to come and help us out.”
For Mrs. Margaret Gbamboye, government has not been fair to the community. She argued that the state government has given alternative access roads to neighbouring communities such as Ifako and Araromi but doesn’t deem it fit to give them their own. “They should come and give us our own as they’ve given others.
They should not block us out of civilisation,” she appealed. The community coordinator, Soliyi 1, Mr. Moses Eniayewu, while explaining the predicament of the community, said the car park being constructed by Deeper Life Bible Church which he said was planned to accommodate 700 buses, 2,500 cars and 30,000 worshippers by the church would further compound the problem of the community.
“Now where will they empty them? Our own argument is that they will still empty all of these at Ayodele Okeowo junction, and when they empty them at the junction the whole place will be jam-packed. There will be no exit and entrance for us. Apart from the vehicular traffic, there is also going to be human traffic. So there is going to be a total blockade,” Eniayewu explained.
He noted that in the 80s, the community had similar problem leading to the church’s relocation to Ayobo before they came back to their present location. He said the grouse of the community was not over the state government’s approval for the church to build but that the same government that gave them approval to build ought to have considered its implication on the people residing in the community. “What we’re now asking the government to do is that they should come and construct two other access roads in the community so that when there is gridlock like this, people can be able to move out and move through those access roads rather than being trapped on one road.
For the past seven years we have been talking about this. What have we done? What is our offence that the government has not thought it needful to come to Soliyi to alleviate our suffering?” he queried. Also lamenting over the state of neglect of his community by the state government, the Baale of Soliyi 2, High Chief Solomon Olamiju, said the community which had been in existence for over 40 years has been going through hell. “For over 40 years there has been no government presence-no hospital, no road, no police station, no market and we have been supporting successive governments.”
He said the edifice being constructed by Deeper Life Bible Church, would cut the community off from Lagos. According to him, residents of the community go through hell on a daily basis in traffic as they spend minimum of 45 minutes to get in and out of the community due to lack of alternative access roads.
“We’ve written to the government; we’ve written to all the appropriate agencies, the Ministry of Works, the Ministry of Environment, the Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency; and the Lagos Ministry of Community and Chieftaincy Affairs. They’ve invited us, we visited them and we’ve shown them alternative routes that can alleviate the suffering of my people. But up till today nothing has been done by the government,” he added.
Meanwhile, in a petition dated February 28, 2017 addressed to the Governor of Lagos State, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode by the community, on “the untold hardship and great inconvenience to people of Soliyi community in Kosofe Local Government and likely threat to peace of the area” made available to THISDAY, the community informed the governor that the only available inlet and outlet (Ayodele Okeowo Street) cannot accommodate the influx of people and vehicles that will be caused by the church. It said even the on-going construction of a flyover bridge by the church from Diya Street to link Ayodele Okeowo Street cannot and would not solve the total grinding of traffic to a complete halt in the community anytime the church was opened for worship, It noted that the whole community will be completely locked down as it was the case in the 1980s before the church relocated to Ayobo, Ipaja then.
In the petition, the community informed the governor that the only solution to the problem will be the construction of two other alternative exit roads for the community. “We propose construction of a link road between Sab Ojewale Street, Soliyi and Mende, Maryland. construction of a bridge to link Aderemi Akeju Street with Yetunde Brown Street at Ifako, Gbagada.
“The above proposals were made to the leadership of Deeper Life Bible Church after two extensive tours of the community and neighborhood with them but they claimed that the church could not afford to carry out the constructions. The church then pledged to reconstruct two other roads within the community that is Ogundare Awise that houses a branch of the church and Fred Omojole Streets. Regrettably however, the church has not done anything on the two roads since the commitment was made two years ago.”
Through the petition, the community said it had informed all organs of the state government including the governor and the leaders of the local government area about its predicament.
The petition partly read: “Sir, in response to our petition dated September 2, 2016, you directed the Honourable Commissioner for Local Government to look into the matter. A meeting called by him was not honoured by the church. The ministry arranged a visit to our community for an on-the-spot assessment of our predicament in January 2017. The team was led by a Director in the ministry. They were taken round. They took pictures of the proposed outlets and the construction work at the church but nothing was heard thereafter.
“Also, you recently directed the General Manager of Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency (LASEPA) to look into this matter. It is regrettable to note that the agreement reached at a meeting chaired by Hon. Sabi (the GM) on January 10, 2017 has not been honoured by the church.
“We have tried our very best to suppress the annoyance, grievances and possible outburst and or revolt of our youths up till now but honestly we do not seem to have that persuasive power to restraint them any longer. Even adults and elders in the community are equally aggrieved. We are now witnessing increasing relocation of tenants from the community for fear of a predictable catastrophic traffic chaos in the community.
“As a man of his words, we count on your promise that our government is an inclusive one but it appears obvious that our community has been neglected because there have been no visible efforts made despite all efforts to draw attention of relevant agencies of government to our predicament. Sir, notwithstanding that we were your host during the electioneering campaign, the community also contributed to the success of your great party at the polls and we have also been supporting the government as good citizens of the state.”
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