Ambode’s tipping point (1)

In people’s mind, Lagos has a dual identity: chaos and chance. It’s on the streets of Lagos you find its identity, where the rich, the middle class, and the poor meet and greet. It’s a city of Lamborghini, Ferraris and Porsches. It’s also a city of “pencil light”, “baby boy” and “Honda Alla”. The superbikes, regular motorcycles (okada), tricycle (keke) and bicycles are there too on the streets of Lagos in inchoate confusion. The owners carry themselves in high esteem, regardless. It is the spirit of Lagos or what you hear at every corner, the Nigerian spirit— don’t accept a second fiddle.

Honestly, it is unavoidable, though the rich will prefer to keep the distance, but the chaotic traffic system in Lagos won’t allow for that. The rich and the poor must come down to see what’s going on at the back side of their cars.

The unavoidable “bumper-to-bumper” accidents in this city of some 20 million people means the rich people who lives in Banana Island and other rich people’s enclave in Lagos are often forced to come down from their cars to apologise to the middle-class and the poor or vice versa in the case of any accident not involving personal injury, even where there’s personal injury. That is a daily affair in Lagos.

Grippingly, in most cases, such situation will create endless traffic, especially, if the rich individual is the aggrieved. In Lagos, motorists often wonder why, when there’s traffic, but with no thought for the best way to eliminate it.

The idea of a traffic radio and some social services offered by tech-savvy individuals may not be the solution afterwards.

For instance, when there’s heavy traffic in a particular route owing to a breakdown vehicle or bumper-to-bumper accident, we’re advised to use alternate route, but those alternate routes are not immune to accidents or breakdown vehicles too. So the problem is with our car insurance and the propensity to leave breakdown vehicle on the road for more than required time.

This is a nut for the Lagos State Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, to crack in his drive to develop Lagos beyond what his predecessors did. Lagos is a symbol of our Union and must be built to an enviable level to attract global attention for the right reasons.

Ambode has made some serious and impressive moves in recent weeks, coming after the initial perplexity faced by his government with splurge in crime and troubling traffic in the metropolis. His swift and coordinated response has made him a tipping point leader.

We all know where the tipping point theory came from. It is from epidemiology. It’s the name given to that moment in an epidemic when a virus reaches critical mass. It’s the boiling point; It’s the moment on the graph when the line starts to shoot straight upwards.

In social context, let’s take tipping point to be that spot at which a series of small changes or incidents becomes significant enough to cause a larger, more important change.

In the case of Lagos, strengthening security in the state with high level equipment, including drone is one significant step. I was excited to hear that drone was used to locate a car stolen by some dare devil robbers in Lagos recently.

But I’m concerned that the Lagos gridlock often caused by commuters, because of bumper-to-bumper accidents continues. That can be eliminated too, if Governor Ambode looks into car insurance and apply necessary force that will make it work.

In liveable cities of the world, you cannot drive a car without insurance and where you are involved in an accident, insurance works, almost immediately. With your policy number handy, insurance details are exchanged and parties are off to pursue their plans for the day, without hindering traffic flow unnecessarily or create an atmosphere for pugilists. The insurance companies will then do the needful. In cases where you cannot drive your car, because of damage, your insurance may have to provide you with a rental car for at least 30 days.

In Nigeria, car insurance hardly works and that’s why people resort to self help, either prostrating on the street to beg for mercy or grabbing each other by the waist to fight, whenever there’s an auto accident.

At the end, after much delay, everyone is tired and you either accept the apology or go away with a bottled up anger that may cause you more problem at home or workplace, depending on which direction you’re heading to as the victim or one that is aggrieved following the accident.

The other part of this is that the government needs to encourage low cost private towing companies providing towing service in a prompt and professional manner.

These companies can be licensed to help Lagosians free up the roads from traffic with their state of the art equipment and a team of professional drivers instead of the government doing such job that often brings it into conflict with residents and perpetually keeping motor vehicle administration office (LASTMA) as a junk yard or home of demurrage.

Granted, my assumption is that issues of good road network in Lagos will not be a subject of discussion under this government like we’ve had in the last 16 years.

In his first official statement, the Lagos State Commissioner for Information, Steve Ayorinde, hinted at the Ambode’s government creating a smart city. Part of the deal is to create alternative modes of transportation and proffer a lasting solution to the perennial traffic gridlock in the state metropolis. Like all Lagosians, I’m in agreement. But how will Ambode’s approach be different from what his predecessor, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, told us, but with no smart city in sight several years after his public pronouncement.

In an ideal smart city, technology is the driver, from the civil servant who answers your enquiry to the police and firefighters who respond with swift operation, the road signs and cameras that are meant to be obeyed, because of the force behind their operation, to the school system that works.

“The need to deploy innovative approaches that address civic challenges in Lagos state has never been greater, and technology is the key to the future,” Fashola said as he was preparing his way out of office last year and that I think is a message for Governor Ambode as he considers ways to do things differently.

To be continued

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