Tears to work

Workers on the Lagos Island may be enjoying the fat salaries attached to their jobs but they remain shackled in pains traveling to their offices.  

Emeka Ibemere, reports

Going to work on the Lagos Island is a journey. As a voyage, there are many adventures encountered as long as the expedition lasts.  Though in some journey, there are a times when the exciting experiments are enormous. But ask workers on the Lagos Island about their experiences: it’s a journey with tears. Reasons: the unabated logjams of traffic and high fares.

To and from office daily; and no matter where one is coming from, the traffic is an unabated windstorm; a battle fought with unabated spirit. From the Lagos Mainland, Ikorodu, Sango, Ota, Badagry, Iyano Ipaja, Agege, Ikotun, Ejigbo, Lekki, Ajah, Epe to Island is a hectic trip of business.  Now, read Ufuoma Ekpe who goes to work on Island from Badagry.  

   “I usually wake up by 4. 30am  to prepare for work and by some minutes to five, am at my bus stop waiting for the next available motorcycle that will take me to the central bus stop where I will now take bus to CMS. My house stretched for 200 meters to my bus stop. So from the Central bus stop at Badagry to CMS, takes me four hectic hours of trip. I start battling the traffic jam from Okoko till Mile 2; the next one start from Orile to CMS and you know what am talking about”, she stated. “It doesn’t include the hire transport fares. God bless you if it didn’t rain on that day.”

Miss Ekpe was not the only one on this route of adventure. For Agaptus Okike, a drive with oil company, its like ‘travelling to work’. I travel everyday to work from Iyano Ishashi in Okoko area of Lagos to CMS. Both to and from office is like a journey of one thousand miles. “At times when I get home, I will be eating and sleeping. Immediately I finished eating, I will just sleep off; weak and tired”. He added, “my brother its killing”.

Okafor said he normally wakes up at 3am; wait for 4am before driving to his boss’ house in Apapa before taking off. Yet, they get office as late as 9am, everyday. If the story of Okafor and Ufuoma are tale- tale stories, then what of the one concerning Mrs Chikodi Ezike, who travel from Ikotun to CMS?

Infact, Ezike one day ran into band of armed robbers as she stepped out from her house.

On one of the days, she was at her bus stop waiting for bus to get to Ikotun bus stop when two men riding on bike screeched to a halt in her front; display their guns and shinned it on her face before disposing her of her hand bag containing her belongings.

Ikotun to CMS takes four hours. The traffic logjam at Ikotun area starts by 4am. The traffic on Ikotun road to CMS only ends at CMS bus stop. There are no smooth run from Ikotun to CMS; if there are, it’s only in the afternoon. As the driver navigates through Isolo, to Oshodi; he ends up at the long queue on the notorious Third Mainland Bridge before ending his trip at Leventis bus. stop.   

Worst still, some of them still arrive their offices late. They have bad roads and the Lagos traffic logjam to blame and high transport fare to contend with. Macaulay Ademola is an Insurance broker and has his office in Victoria Island. He resides at Iba Estate in Iba/Ojo Local Council Development Area (LCDA), Lagos State.

Throughout last year, he saw hell navigating from Iba to Adeolu Odeku office on daily basis.

He narrates his ordeal: “I cannot forget my last year’s experience. Thank God I have changed job now and I have nothing to do with V/I early in the morning again. It is now that I know the bitter journey I was going through all these years. I can now understand how people could cope going to work in a far distances from their work place and making such traumatic trips daily for at least five to six days every week”, he reasoned.

Eze Nwagosu is a banker with an old generation bank. He is a senior staff of the bank but despite the privileges attached to his work, Eze is not happy every Monday. To him, Mondays are his worse days of the week.

 Eze lives in his own apartment in the Agege area of Lagos. For eight years he had worked in the bank, he has refused to take his car to office and he vowed that nothing could make him go to work with his car. His reason is the bad road and the traffic jam that are the norm in Agege.

 “I used to reside at one extreme part of Agege, the area has this bad road. “To meet up with Monday meetings I have to wake between 3 am and 4 am to take bus. From where am living, I board three different buses. And after closing, i join staff bus but even as at that, I used to return home between 11 p.m and 12am. Having taking some naps inside the bus, I visit my bed by 1am”, Eze lamented.

“My transport fare to and from the office daily was N1, 500 and about N9, 000 a week and N36, 000 monthly. So you can now see that it’s not easy no matter what you are earning”.

Agatha Nnawu, also a staff of an oil company services told Newswatch Daily that her marriage was under pressure at a time and that she has an understanding manager who transferred her to their Ikeja Lagos office, which   brought peace into her home. Agatha said before her transfer from Victoria Island, she always returns to her house by 11am to her residence in Iju-Ishaga only to meet her kids sleeping.

 “Sir, going to work to Lagos Island is not easy for married women. If i move early as early as 4am I arrive my office on time. But coming back, I return home at about 11 p.m, which means on any working day, I have an average of three or four hours to rest,” she stated.

 Another landlord working with a new hotel on Lekki but come to work from Abaranje in Ikotun said he always feel bitter waking up early yet getting office late despite paying much as transport. He revealed that not all the people working on Island are paid handsomely. According to him, some receive poor salaries, wake up early, go to office late and return home late.  “Traffic gridlock, high transport fare and other problems are sapping the energy, purse, marriage and even carrier of those working on Lagos Island.  Investigation has shown that those who work on an Island earn more money as salary but have little or no savings due to high cost of transportation to work. Also it was revealed that most of the workers on Island put little hours to work than any worker on mainland. Brendan Ochi, a graduate of statistics from Imo State University, Owerri said an average worker travelling from the Mainland to Lagos Island spends an average of nine hours on daily basis. He added that such a person spends much money on transport and must rise early in the morning and in most cases return home late at night. A medical doctor who pleaded for anonymity also said they are prone to health hazards arising from toxic wastes from the smokes coming out from the exhausts of cars on hold-up.