The Lagos State government has vowed to enforce a strict “no truck” policy across the state, following a devastating gas truck explosion that occurred under the Otedola Bridge on Tuesday night.
Commissioner for Transportation, Oluwaseun Osiyemi, said this on Thursday after he led a team from the ministry to the accident scene.
According to him, the truck had violated Lagos State law by ignoring a “no truck allowed” sign on the road, stressing that the Ministry of Transportation would enforce the policy to prevent similar accidents.
“We came here to do an assessment of the situation of what happened two days ago. We’ve sent an initial team, but we had to come ourselves to confirm the situation and also see what actually went wrong.
“But what we’ve been able to at least see immediately is the fact that, one, there’s a road sign right there that says ‘no truck allowed’.
“And for the truck to be on this axis, evidently it’s violated the law of Lagos State.
“As the Ministry of Transportation, I’m going to take steps to ensure that we enforce that sign, maybe by way of barrier and not allowing such trucks to ply this kind of road.
“When you look at the road, it’s quite undulated, and it’s not even motorable for those kinds of trucks.
“So the whole essence is one, assess what’s on the ground; two, to be able to bring up things that would avert such situations,” Osiyemi stated.
The commissioner attributed the cause of the accident to poor truck maintenance, citing the failure of truck owners to properly inspect and maintain their vehicles.
This, he noted, has led to a surge in accidents involving trucks on Lagos roads.
To address this issue, Osiyemi hinted that the state government is working with the Federal Road Safety Corps, FRSC, to inspect trucks and ensure they are roadworthy.
“There’s a lot of collaboration ongoing on how to, one, inspect these trucks and make sure they are roadworthy, and, two, if they are not roadworthy, of course, they are going to be confiscated.
“We will do our role by inspecting and clamping down on trucks that are not roadworthy,” Osiyemi stated.
On the cracks on Otedola Bridge, the commissioner said: “Typically when we do this kind of assessment, we don’t limit it to the Ministry of Transportation alone. We also did observe a little crack, not just the bridge but some other cracks in the drainage system.
“Immediately we’re going to escalate to the Ministry of Environment for them to do the needful because we also know that the rainy period is coming and they need to quickly move in, and I’m sure that will be sorted out.
“As regards the infrastructure, which is the bridge, when there’s an accident like this, we conduct an integrity test.”
“The Ministry of Works and Infrastructure will involve the Federal Ministry of Works. We’ve already contacted them but will also ensure we follow up.
“The integrity test, I’m sure, will be done, if not today, before the end of this week, so that we can confirm that the bridge is good enough for motorists to ply on,” Osiyemi added.
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