Lagos – The Lagos State Government has advised residents to always use the pedestrian bridges built across the highways to guard against unnecessary loss of lives.
Mr Oluwatoyin Awosika, the Director, Public Enlightenment in the state’s Ministry of Information, gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Lagos.
Awosika said that the bridges were specifically erected as safety platforms for pedestrians
According to him, the ministry will intensify its public enlightenment on the importance of the pedestrian bridges with a view to encouraging them to use them to cross over busy highways.
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“We have done our own survey in the ministry of information and found out that to climb the bridge, the time is even lesser.
“If you spend a minute to climb the bridge, you would not spend a minute to cross the highway and then it is safer to take it.
“Let them pity those they have left at home they want to commit suicide and once they commit the suicide they are gone but the children, their parents, those they are sponsoring in schools would be the ones to suffer.
“So if you think of those ones, then it would take you just a minute or two to climb the bridge.
“But we also recognize that some people have fear of heights so, such people too we tell them you have to go the extra mile.
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“Take a bus to the other side, then take a bus coming back the other way instead of risking your life to cross the road.
“Sometimes in the past government was arresting these people, Kick Against Indiscipline (KAI) were penalising them, people came and said it was dehumanizing.
“So they started charging them before the Environmental Sanitation Office but of recent , it was found that yes, we would that but it takes more of education than penalising people.’’
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He told NAN that vandals usually dismantled barricades erected on road medians to compel pedestrians to use the bridges. (NAN)
