I62 Essay Pro

GEED 162:POWER OF PERSUATION USING LANGUGE NAME: STUDENT NO: 089668

GROUP NO: 03

INSTRUCTOR: MR JOHN ELDRIDGE

LAGOS:TOWN TO CITY TO EXTINCTION

“As ground transportation becomes increasingly challenging due to congestion and higher costs, we're offering a strong logistical alternative with cost, reliability and environmental benefits.”

Craig Lawrence

Lagos city is one of the major cities in Africa and the major city in Nigeria. Located in the western region of Nigeria it holds approximately one-third of the hundred and twenty million people living in Nigeria. The problem of congestion was forecasted which then resulted in moving the capital of city from Lagos to Abuja. Though it still stands as the major commercial centre in Nigeria, Congestion is beginning to loom over this city and unless drastic measures aren’t taken to prevent this, the city will continue to loose its space in the African community and the world as we know it if it keeps on ignoring the problem of congestion. The problem is how to get Lagos back on the map as it once was, even though congestion is inevitable in every city but suitable measures have to be taken to control it some of which are discussed below. Insufficient road networks connecting other parts of the city to the city central is a major issue because congestion will continue to emanate from this problem if there are no alternative routes to the city centre, of course this is as a result of poor planning as the population was not forecasted to have increased in such an alarming rate. To tackle this problem the government has to embark on a project that will create alternative routes to ease traffic congestion in the city. This could end the era of having traffic congestion on one side of the road due to the early morning rush hour and during the closing hours of work. Another agent of congestion is migration, of course it would be very sarcastic for the government to stop migration but instead it should be kept at a controllable rate so that facilities can meet people’s needs. The chart below shows the migration rate from the last four quarters.

From the graph we can see a steady increase of people from the 1st to the 4th qtr of 2004, 2005, 2007.The same also applies to 2006 except for the fact that the first

two quarters had the same percentage of immigrants because of the population census carried out in 2006 in which drastic measures were taken to reduce the migration rate through out the country, but in general a steady increased can be observed which is normal for every city, but the ability to cater for the growing number differentiates a CITY from a city. This therefore goes to show how congested Lagos is and will be in the near future, if necessary steps are not taken to control this rapid growth. The economy will also be affected by this growth positively or negatively depending on how effectively it is being controlled. It is therefore left to the government to keep the migration rate at a steady flow that can be handled. Furthermore a major player in congestion is insufficient transport facilities, without which people and goods will just be concentrated within a given area causing this congestion which is not good for a city like Lagos where the growing number of people is no longer depending on its landmass. People need to be transported from one place to the other to carry out their day to day activities. Sufficient transport is providing enough transport facilities so that people will be able to carry out their daily activities. Therefore the government should implement this “sufficient transport” system to reduce congestion rate in the city, and with this in practice people will rather take the bus than their private cars to reduce traffic congestion on the road. This could be done by getting new city like type of buses like the Bus Rapid Transit (B.R.T) which will help convey more number of people at a time like the ones below.

Also separate lanes have to be constructed aside from the roads so that motorists will be convinced to use the buses which will in turn reduce traffic congestion on the roads like the one below

Law enforcers should also be on the look out for violators who are bound to break these rules. People should embrace this because sometimes in life in order to be successful we all have to make sacrifices. In conclusion in order recreate a lively city as it once Lagos will need a free, fair and just government as a major ingredient to spice up the change or it will drown into extinction with effects like crime rate, mortality rate and unemployment on the rise. It is all up to the government but time is ticking for Lagos.

WORD COUNT: 821

REFERENCEShttp://images.google.com.ng/images?gbv=2&hl=en&sa=1&q=Brt+buses+in+Lagos&btnG=Search+Images&aq=f&oq=

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