Lagos – The Lagos State Government on Monday gave a seven-day ultimatum to residents and residents’ associations to desist from locking street gates and barricades during the day. The Commissioner for Local Government and Community Affairs, Alhaji Muslim Folami, spoke on the ultimatum in Ikeja, while addressing newsmen on the disturbing trend of street gates across the state in Ikeja. Folami said that all residents and residents’ associations with gated streets and barricades should henceforth operate on regulated time in closing and opening the gates. He said the regulated time was between 12 midnight and 5.30 am for closure and 5.30 am till 12 midnight for opening. The commissioner said that such gates would be pulled down in areas where the warning was not complied with. Folami said that the government decided to renew the warning in view of the challenges and dangers the gates and barricades posed to the public. He recalled that in the early 2000s, residents resorted to constructing street gates and barricades as part of efforts to secure themselves and their property.
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The commissioner said that the barricades, though well intended, constituted obstructions to traffic, especially in areas where such gates were on roads meant to serve as thoroughfare or alternative link routes. He also said that the barricades, apart from the bottlenecks they created, became hurdles that the police, fire engines and vehicles on emergency had to scale when carrying out their legitimate duties. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that in 2009, the state government, having observed the effects of such structures on the people, had ordered that all gates or barricades leading to major roads in the state be locked only between midnight and 5.00am. It also ordered that such streets must be manned by security guards to ensure vehicular movement. Folami said that the directive, over the years, seemed to have been abandoned. “As the years rolled by, the directive seems to be abandoned, as street gates are making a comeback, even on streets that never had them before,” he said. Folami decried the manner in which some communities fortified and constructed their gates in ways that could only allow cars and not buses to pass through. The Senior Special Assistant to the governor on Community Affairs, Alhaji Tajudeen Quadri, urged all Community Development Committees (CDCs) to adhere strictly to the directive. Quadri said that the state government was committing enormous resources, skills, knowledge, materials and money to crime fighting. Alhaja Aramide Shifawu, on behalf of the CDCs, said they would comply with the directive. (NAN)
