Residents and business owners in the maidan area of Ikosi Isheri local council development area of Lagos State are sending an SOS message to the Lagos State governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu.
They are asking the governor to build a bridge that will help them access other communities within the Agility/Mile 12 area of the state.
Less than five minutes away from the popular Mile 12 market, you find Maidan community, a suburb in Ikosi Ketu. For thousands of residents here, life has becomes unbearable, for about a year, residents of the Maidan area of Mile 12, Lagos State have resigned to an imminent danger of using rickety boats to access communities around them.
Under Ikosi-isheri local council development area, this is one of the oldest communities but since it was curated, maidan has suffered years of neglect, seeking the provision of basic social amenities like pipe borne water, good roads, stable electricity, basic and secondary education infrastructure, primary health care facilities and most urgent need: a bridge to access other communities. Since there is no bridge over the river, residents use rickety boats.
Constructed by the Buba Marwa administration, according to residents, the now broken bridge was supposed to link the community with other communities, but that dream was short-lived with the advent of democracy in 1999.
Everyday, hundreds of children from the community brave the odds to attend schools in Mile 12 and Ketu, a risky but necessary journey for the love of education. Residents say the situation is worse during rainy period, as the community is always submerged by floods.
Mr Moruf Akanni is a businessman who has resided here for 18 years, he is on his way out to work in someone else’s shop.
It’s more a year since the makeshift bridge collapsed, persistent cries are yet to be answered, residents fear the community is gradually becoming a ghost town.
