Road users made the appeal in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.
A NAN correspondent, who visited the road, reports that large and deep puddles were found on two sections of the highway towards Sango Ota, near Olosha, making vehicular movement difficult.
NAN observed that street children, popularly known as “area boys”, were now hiding around the damaged parts to help vehicle drivers stuck in one of the flooded craters for remuneration.
A tricycle driver who plying the Mushin/Idi-Oro route, Ade Adesanya, said the damaged parts had become a nightmare for drivers who risked accidents every day on these degraded stretches.
Adesanya said tricycles had repeatedly overturned on these damaged parts, causing serious injuries to passengers.
Solomon Udeh, a dealer of musical instruments and equipment in Mushin, said the bad road usually caused heavy traffic jams during peak hours.
He said: “I can count up to five containers that fell at this location, at the Olosha bus stop in Mushin.”
Udeh said because his shop was near one of the damaged parts, he witnessed the difficulties faced by road users and pleaded for urgent government intervention.
“We need help from the government because the situation is really terrible.
“In the evening, this place is usually inaccessible because everything is blocked. So we need urgent help from the government,” he said.
A banker, Josephine Katung, appealed to the government to undertake road improvement works to reduce the suffering of the people.
Katung told NAN that she was at the mercy of the “area boys” on two occasions when the wheels of her car got stuck in one of the craters.
“This road has been in this condition for over three weeks. Why are government agencies turning a deaf ear? Potholes should be fixed as soon as they appear, it doesn’t need to come to this.
“This is not good for business; the hours lost each day must be accounted for by the government,” she said.
Katung called on the federal government to urgently repair the damaged parts to reduce the hours lost on the highway each day.
In his reaction, an official from the Federal Highway Maintenance Agency (FERMA) blamed the constant deterioration of the road on the filling of drains and the channeling of sewage to the highway.
Olisa Emeter, Federal Roads Maintenance Engineer for FERMA, told NAN that the constant flooding of the highway was causing the continued degradation of the road.
Emeter said the agency has repaired the blighted portions several times, but they continue to deteriorate due to water damaging the asphalt.
He said FERMA’s interventions for clearing the drains were rendered insignificant due to the tendency of residents to block the drains resulting in the water destroying the road.
He called on residents to stop blocking drains to limit flooding and the rapid deterioration of roads.
“We will find a way to drain the water that is causing the damage.
“The way residents use the gutters as trash cans is shocking; water does not flow through the drain, because of all the trash and cesspools.
“The water around that section of Olosha is pouring straight onto the road, it’s not allowing the water to go where it should go,” he said.
Emeter called on residents to use LAWMA designated points where large waste collectors are provided for sanitation in each neighborhood, rather than drains.
He also urged the state health department to sensitize residents about the health consequences of dumping sewage into drains to avoid an outbreak.
According to him, the agency compiled a list of all the bad roads in the state, including the Lagos-Ota-Abeokuta expressway, and reported it to its headquarters.
Emeter said FERMA would swing into action for massive intervention on the roads as soon as it received the necessary funds for the projects.