FG To Return Toll Gates On Federal Roads In Nigeria

THE Federal Government on Wednesday said that plans were at the advanced stage to return toll gate on the federal highways.

The Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola disclosed this while briefing State House Correspondents after the Federal Executive Council, FEC, meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Council Chamber, Presidential Villa Abuja.

Fashola, flanked by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed said there was no law that stopped the government from having toll gate on federal roads.

He said, “There is no reason why we can’t toll, there was a policy of the government to abolish tolls or as it were, dismantle toll plaza but there is no law that prohibits tolling in Nigeria today. We expect to return toll plazas, We have concluded their designs of what they will look like, what materials they will be rebuilt with, what new considerations must go into them.

“What we are looking at now and trying to conclude is how the bank end runs.”

He said that the government was also considering to eliminate the payment of cash by introducing electronic mode of payment.

The Minister further disclosed that government needed to acquire more lands to expand the width of the toll gates as it proposed to have a ten-lane.

The Irony of Lagos Lesser Known Toll Gate: An Exposé Into Mushin Toll Gate

If you are a regular road user of the Mushin, Fadeyi, Onipanu area, there is no way that you won't pass through the Mushin toll gate. The Mushin toll gate links Mushin and Ogunmokun Street junction. The Mushin toll gate has been there for ages, in fact as long as residents can remember. The Mushin Toll Gate collects money from commercial buses, private car owners even to bikes and Keke NAPEP plying this route, they charge from 50 naira upwards depending on your category of cars or vehicles.

While it is not a crime or a sin to collect toll fares in as such as people see what you use the funds to do by making sure the road is up to standard and you use the toll fees to develop the roads which they are paying.

One of our readers sent in this post detailing the activities of the Mushin Toll Gate and why those in charge of it only collect money from road users and refuse to maintain and develop the road. The question now is, where are these monies going to? Who are those in charge and lots more.

Read his submission below...

What comes to the mind of an average Lagosian when the concept of a toll gate is mentioned? Most Lagosians will most likely think about the Lekki and Ikoyi toll gates. These tollgates were introduced by the past administration of Babatunde Fashola as a solution to providing funding for the construction and maintenance of major roads in the city.

However, this development proved quite unpopular in some quarters, leading to high profile protests that claimed the life of one protester and possibly informed the decision of the state government acquiring the concessionaire (Lekki Concession Company) in 2014. 

However, there is a lesser-known toll gate situated at the gateway of Mushin Local Government Area. The toll gate is situated between Kayode Street in the Onipan area of Lagos and Ogunmokun Street in the Mushin area of Lagos.

Mushin toll gates operate much in the same way as its more popular cousins, with attendants backed by armed policed men demanding that motorist pay the prescribed toll fare before passage through the gate. It, however, stands apart from its more popular cousin as it is situated on a road that could well compete as one of Lagos bad roads. The road is riddled with deep portholes, silt, and dirt, creating a non-recreational off-road driving experience for motorists plying the road.

If some users of the Lekki-Epe Expressway found it difficult to understand why the state government had to toll the road to an area that possibly generates billions in monthly tax revenues to fund the repair and maintain it, it is lost to most users of Mushin roads as to why Government will toll a road to a major economic hub without any meaningful effort to repair it over the years.

Perhaps, it’s high time the State and Local Government clarify the justification for the toll gate at Mushin. God bless Lagos State.

See the state of the roads around this area...