Hold up, Go Slow, Bumper to Bumper – the inhabitants of Lagos seem to have as many words for traffic as the inuit are said to have for snow. Agonizing queues take many hours to get through the get the morning rush hour on the Essingeleden in Stockholm, sweden pale in comparison and they have been a part of everyday life for the city’s over 20 million inhabitants during the last decades of the violent urbanisation. Every day grow the city’s population of 1,500 persons and in day rolls around two million vehicles on its streets.
the State has begun to build out the track and vattenbundna traffic but still made around 90 per cent of all motor vehicle travel on the roads. Then grows the congestion to the right and the left. It does not get better by two of the country’s largest port terminals are located right in town which means thousands of trucks driving through the city centre, ” says Victor Oteri, who is programme manager of the Lagos Traffic Radio.
Image 1 of 5 the Traffic in Lagos is usually a nightmare for residents of the city. Photo: Erik Esbjörnsson Image 2 of 5 A street in the Agege on Friday morning… Photo: Erik Esbjörnsson Image 3 of 5 …and the same street 24 hours later, on the day of the election. Photo: Erik Esbjörnsson Image 4 of 5 Photo: Erik Esbjörnsson Image 5 of 5 Photo: Erik Esbjörnsson Slideshow
three million commuters on their broadcasts that updates the road users about the traffic situation. He remembers to this day the worst day in living memory.
” We sent live the first time on 29 may 2012. Three days later smashed two trucks with a truck and 24 cars caught fire on the highway. Kranbilarna that would lift away the wrecks could not come to and people were stuck for several days on the road, ” he says.
Every four years, may Lagosborna two days of respite, with two-week intervals, during the two Saturdays when the country first select the president and the parliament and local leaders. The presidential election held on Saturday.
in the northeast, heard gunfire and explosions at dawn but the police claimed that no civilians had been in the line of fire, but that it was part of an operation conducted by the security services. On their keep arose brawl around the polling stations who have not received all the material but election day passed relatively peacefully in a country that has experienced many chaotic selection.
Obalade the Ifa decided to walk across the bridge to the polling station. Photo: Erik Esbjörnsson
instead of being stuck on the roads queued Lagosborna to the polling stations. All vehicular traffic is prohibited over the whole of Nigeria on the election day and its 200 million inhabitants have to stay where they are, in the neighborhood where they live. If they are not moved then the registration with the electoral authority.
” I’ve been half an hour and have a couple hour walk in front of me, I am on my way to the polling station in Obalende, says Obalade Ifa that DN hits out on the Third Mainland Bridge, the 12-km-long bridge over the lagoon.
of cars broken down on eight lanes and it can take four hours to cross the bridge – this day of election, he is completely alone on the asphalt.
“I have never tried to walk the route before, it feels strange,” says the Ifa, who are happy to accept DN’s offer for a ride the remaining distance (observers, journalists and election workers are excluded from the ban).
Image 1 of 2 In each and every street corner becomes framrullade the tires to the goal posts and the game can begin. Photo: Erik Esbjörnsson Slide 2 of 2 Photo: Erik Esbjörnsson Slideshow
the Town’s colours be changed on the day of the election. Usually färgsätts the city of the warm shade of yellow that is used by around 300.000 minivans, but when standing still, go to the notes in the asfaltgrått. This extreme application of the concept of ”car-free inner city” means in addition to the streets being taken back by the inhabitants, who are exclusively engaged in a single activity: football. In each and every street corner becomes framrullade the tires to the goal posts and the game can begin. At the Apongbon-the road that runs over the oldest parts of the city involved hundreds of children in about a dozen spontaneous matches, which is not only played on the highway, but also on the side streets.
– Unfortunately it can’t always be like this, but we are enjoying on the day of the election, ” says the security guard Adebowale Shodeinde enjoying a cold beer in the shade of a tin roof and watching football.
is the spouses Oluyinka and Olu Adedeji home from the polling station. They have brought a packed lunch and drink for the walk as they had never done before.
” My husband said, ”we walk” so I packed the bag. I can’t understand how peaceful it is, it is so quiet and peaceful, ” says Oluyinka Adedeji.
Image 1 of 2 Spouses Olu and Oluyinka Adedeji packed lunch and drinks and walked to the polling station. Photo: Erik Esbjörnsson Slide 2 of 2 A few clouds piling up in the afternoon and soon the open skies of the megacity and the streets emptied. Photo: Erik Esbjörnsson Slideshow
But wonderful is short. the A few clouds piling up in the afternoon and soon the open skies of the megacity and the streets emptied. DN swings past the radio studio where Victor Oteri driven journalists to observe elections throughout the day in the absence of traffic. He lacks vision in both eyes and his experience of election day is another. On Saturday morning, have intense chirping of birds replaced the cars ‘ honking and the engines snorting.
“It sounds as if I am in a different city,” he says.
– People lose millions in foregone business so it would not be possible. But one time five years ago we had a tut-free day to try to bring down the noise level in the city. We should try again, ” he says.
the Votes will be counted on Saturday and the earliest on Monday morning is expected a result to be clear.
