The toll-free status of the exotic Lagos Lekki toll gate one year after the #EndSARS social unrest that erupted in 2020 speaks volume of feats a society can accomplish in unison.
For years since its inception in 2012, the toll gate situated at the Lekki-Epe Expressway, with the Lekki Concession Company (LCC) as concessioner, was commercialised even as motorists grudgingly paid to ply the route.
However, this came to a halt on Oct. 20, 2020, following an #EndSARS agitation against police brutality, extra judicial killings and other social ills.
On Oct. 4, 2020, a video had gone viral showing Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) officers dragging two men from a hotel and shooting one of them outside and a few days later, protests were staged across Nigeria.
The Nigerian Police Force on Oct. 11, 2020 announced the dissolution of the SARS unit with immediate effect and the move was widely received as a accomplishment of the demonstrations.
On Oct. 20, protests erupted across Nigeria as the Nigerian army and police reportedly killed some protesters.
In retrospect, from the onset, indigenes and residents of the area vehemently rejected payment to daily access their ancestral and acquired homes, but were stifled by state that favoured toll collection.
The facility that used to generate millions of naira daily through sapping commuters and motorists of money for its owners, against the will of the people today through the unwavering resolve of Nigerian youth, has become free.
The reduction in transport fare along that route lessened vehicular traffic jam that stoppage of vehicles for payments at the toll gate caused; these and more made the highbrow area a dreadful place to go.
The fare to the area from CMS station today is N300 unlike the N500 that commuters used to pay years back.
Many thanks to the peoples’ toll free Lekki toll gate feat that began with the “hashtag #OccupyLekkiTollGate” and which also saw some people “laying their lives’’ as a result of the shooting of protesting Nigerian youths by the military in a bid to disperse the protesters.
This attracted global outcry compelling the state to constitute formal inquest to unravel the cause, damage and compensation to the victims.
Social analysts are of the opinion that if people kept quiet in the face of injustice, the perpetrators will continue to make prey of the people.
But, when the people speak with one voice and reject the onslaught of misguided polices, the society will be better.
According to Dr Wale Oke Wale, a Political Science Lecturer, societal space shrinks when common interest is relegated.
Wale, who teaches at the Lagos State University academics, said: “ Like the Lekki struggle, Nigerians have the capacity to better the society by being resolute whenever public interest is perceived to be relegated for personal interest.
“Nigerians should hold leaders accountable by questioning the whereabouts of funds voted for projects that never get executed, projects shabbily done by contractors and the likes of other unbridle society anomalies bedeviling the people.
“With such spirit, an end to office corruption, nepotism, medical negligence that has resulted to many deaths, sale of fake drugs, vandalisation of our critical infrastructure by unscrupulous individuals and selling of substandard building materials in our markets that has resulted to buildings collapsing will stop,” he said.
The don tasked the Nigerian civil public to spearhead a result oriented security network that will halt insecurity challenges in the country.
Also speaking on the anniversary of the incident, a Social Commentator, Mr Pat Uzoma, said that the best way to immortalise the causalities is to use the day to advocate for an end to social malaise that people feel strongly about.
Uzoma stressed the need for power to reside with the people; saying that with popular interest on the front burner, political leadership choices would be in favour of the masses.