We have made our country to a lawless entity where regards for common ethics are flouted devoid of any thoughts. What I witnessed on Lagos-Ibadan expressway yesterday was an example of the level to which our society has disintegrated.
The kind of problems people face anytime the Express Churches (My own fabrication) hold their programs can not but be noticed by Government, Lagos-Ibadan, a journey that normally takes about 1 hr 20 mins extends to 8 hours sometimes when the churches have their programmes and nobody has deemed it fit to challenge them, not yet!
I witnessed the worst of these traffic jams (from my own personal experience) yesterday. It was unfortunate that I never remembered that Loveworld (Chris Oyakhilome’s church) were having their “MIRACLE NIGHT” until I entered the bus. At last we had to take a route that would have alarmed anyone, barring the present situation; it was a bush path between Ibafo and Mowe. It took us about 5 hours to get to Ibadan and feelers from reports later indicated that if not for the driver’s ingenuity, the journey would have extended to about 8 hours.
While not trying to fault people looking for miracles; I will not be part of mediocrity and silence. I believe that these churches should have mechanisms for logistics that could prevent these ugly incidences. A simple thing such as providing shuttle buses for pilgrims to the Miracle land and telling them to drop their cars at home would have reduced the traffic jams. Other possibilities should have been devised to curb the problem before the program held.
While coming back from Ibadan, the experience was even worse and I heard the kind of comments people made and I could not help but agree with some of them. Someone even said that a bride going for her wedding at Ibadan had to come out of the car and removed her veil when the going became very tough; another person suggested that she should have taken Okada to Ibadan 🙂
My own fear is even with emergency health care in cases of accidents on those days and even case referral from a hospital in Lagos to UCH in Ibadan; how would they have passed? We used to have three main churches on the express, now they are four, and the fourth one is even like attracting the biggest crowd ever. I think it’s high time government rose up to tackle this incessant problems by discussing with the churches on way forward to prevent traffic jams on their crusade days.
It is important to do this before the problem escalates beyond measures.