September 20, (THEWILL) – There is something profoundly wrong with a country where travelling from one city to another can become a test of endurance, where a journey that should take two hours can consume an entire day, and where a broken-down truck can bring economic activity to a standstill for tens of kilometres.
Across Nigeria, the nation’s major highways are increasingly becoming economic traps. The Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Oshodi-Apapa corridor, Lagos-Sagamu-Ijebu-Ode-Benin road, Abuja-Lokoja highway, Abuja-Kaduna road, Kaduna-Zaria road, Benin-Asaba corridor, Onitsha-Enugu highway, Enugu-Port Harcourt road and the East-West corridor are among the routes that have repeatedly subjected motorists, passengers and businesses to debilitating congestion, accidents and prolonged delays.
The consequences go far beyond the inconvenience of sitting in traffic.
The Lagos-Ibadan Expressway has provided a particularly disturbing illustration. In September 2026, a seven-vehicle crash around Kara Bridge brought traffic to a standstill for hours. Days earlier, motorists had endured prolonged gridlock following another truck crash, while repairs to the Kara Bridge generated additional congestion.
These are not isolated incidents. They are symptoms of a road transportation system operating dangerously close to its limits.
The Federal Road Safety Corps’ route analysis has repeatedly identified some of these corridors among the country’s most crash-prone. Its 2022 report recorded 803 crashes and 257 deaths on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway alone, while the Abuja-Lokoja road recorded 596 crashes and 249 deaths. Kaduna-Zaria recorded 256 deaths.
The figures are a sobering reminder that bad roads and dangerous traffic conditions are not merely infrastructure problems. They are public-safety and economic problems.
Every hour spent unnecessarily in traffic is an hour removed from productive work. Commercial drivers make fewer trips. Factory workers arrive late or exhausted. Traders lose selling time. Artisans miss appointments. Students lose valuable learning hours. Businesses spend more on fuel, vehicle maintenance, and logistics. Perishable goods rot in stranded trucks. The true cost is undoubtedly higher because many losses never appear in official statistics.
The road crisis therefore feeds directly into inflation. When transporters spend more on diesel, fuel, repairs, tyres and driver allowances, those costs ultimately enter the prices consumers pay. Poor roads consequently become an invisible tax on households already struggling with high living costs.
Nigeria cannot continue treating these problems as normal features of transportation. The solution requires a fundamental change from reactive road management to preventive infrastructure management.
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First, the government must establish a national maintenance regime in which major highways are inspected continuously rather than repaired only after they become dangerous. Bridges, expansion joints, drainage systems, shoulders and carriageways require scheduled preventive maintenance.
Second, articulated trucks and tankers must be subjected to stronger enforcement of roadworthiness requirements. The September Kara crash, involving a container truck that reportedly developed a mechanical fault, demonstrates the potentially enormous consequences of mechanical failure on a major highway.
Third, emergency clearance systems must be dramatically improved. A crashed truck should not remain on a strategic highway for hours. Every major corridor needs strategically positioned heavy-duty towing equipment, ambulances, fire services, and trained traffic-response teams.
Fourth, the country must tackle the disorder surrounding major transport and port corridors. The recurring Oshodi-Apapa gridlock, for instance, is associated with container trucks, fuel tankers, indiscriminate parking and operational bottlenecks. The Nigerian Ports Authority has acknowledged the problem and established a multi-agency task force to address congestion around port access roads.
Fifth, the government must stop regarding road construction as sufficient evidence of infrastructure delivery. Nigerians need a road that works—safe, properly drained, adequately lit where necessary, efficiently managed and maintained throughout its useful life.
Finally, Nigeria needs reliable data on the economic cost of congestion. Government should measure lost man-hours, additional fuel consumption, freight delays, vehicle damage, perishables lost, accident-related costs, and business closures attributable to major road failures.
