Following the outcry of Lagosians about the nefarious activities of miscreants occupying some pedestrian bridges along major expressways in the State and the recurrent harassment meted out to unsuspecting pedestrians which discourages their use of these bridges for safety, the Lagos Government through its Environmental Sanitation Corps (LAGESC) popularly called KAI, conducted an enforcement operation to dislodge touts and miscreants constituting nuisance on the Oshodi and Ikeja-Along pedestrian bridges.
It said that the move to remove all human and environmental infractions which pose threats to the appropriate usage of pedestrian bridges by pedestrians.
Corps Marshal of the Agency, Major Olatunbosun Cole (Retd), disclosed this on Monday after the enforcement exercise.
According to him, ‘‘we received outcries from Lagosians about the activities of miscreants and touts occupying the Oshodi and Ikeja-Along bridges on the guise of seeking shade, thereby placing themselves strategically to dislodge pedestrians of their valuables which discourages their use of the pedestrian bridges on the highways as it serves the purpose of protecting them from being knocked over by speeding motorists’’.
Cole affirmed the resolve of the Agency to consolidate on this ongoing enforcement, adding that any person found constituting threat to the safety of pedestrians on highways will be apprehended and prosecuted by the courts to serve as deterrents to others. He also stressed the need for Lagos residents in transit to make appropriate use of the bridges for their safety in the stead of crossing highways as any erring pedestrian apprehended by KAI operatives will equally face prosecution.
The KAI top man in his final comments read the riot act to traders displaying their wares for sale on, around and beneath pedestrian bridges which constitutes street trading as proscribed in the State’s Environmental Laws, citing that the law will take due course on any apprehended defaulters.
