Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has urged Lagosians residing outside Victoria Island, to consider conducting their businesses remotely to lessen the vehicular traffic gridlock on the roads leading to the area.

Mr Sanwo-Olu disclosed this to journalists on Thursday, following the traffic gridlock in the early hours of the day after the closure of the Independence Bridge (Marina bound), by the Federal Government for rehabilitation.

The FG has initially said the bridge would be closed until May 2025, but the Works Minister, Dave Umahi, directed the immediate reopening of the bridge, despite its unmotorable state, after the unpalatable experience of motorists due to the gridlock.

Mr Sanwo-Olu said, “Let’s think out of the box, let’s now know that if you don’t have a business to do in Victoria Island, in the next two to three weeks, conduct your business via social media, telephone, online meetings and plan ahead, so that if you don’t need to come and visit somebody here, please, you don’t have to come. If you don’t have a meeting that needs your physical presence, think out of the box. If you don’t need to come out at 7 o’clock, wait till 10 o’clock, let the people that need to come out at 7 and 10 o’clock come out, you defer your time, two, three hours.”

Recalling that in 2020, similar restricted movements were observed in some areas for some weeks during the COVID-19 pandemic, Mr Sanwo-Olu said his appeal was for motorists to be able to plan their journey time and also consider other alternatives to allow ease of traffic.

Taking responsibility for the poor communication to motorists before the maintenance work commenced as well as the consequent gridlock, Mr Sanwo-Olu said the state government was also considering the construction of a counterflow to serve as an alternative route.

He said, “We’re also thinking of another alternative. Can we do a counterflow from here? We’re looking at that but it also needs a lot of excavation, we’re going to break a lot of things, and we don’t know if that also will be fully effective but we’ll consider that in the next one or two days and see the effect of counterflow, using all of the traffic information that we currently have.”

He assured that the number of officials of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority on the roads in the area would be doubled, noting that, “we’re calling them from other parts of the city, so that they can make a presence here. And like what we did in November, December, they’ll work till very late at night.”