LEKKI TOLLGATE CLOSURE: Lagos government, LCC lost N2.4bn in three months

The cost closure of Lekki tollgates has cost the Lagos State government and the Lekki Concession Company (LCC) at least N2.4 billion in the last three months.

The tollgate was shut by the state government following the shooting of #ENDSARS protesters by soldiers on October 20 last year.

However, the state government had given the LCC the go-ahead to reopen the toll plaza for business.

The huge financial loss by the state government may have prompted the show of force by the police against the #OccupyLekki protesters who on Saturday mobilized themselves against the reopening of the toll plaza.

The #ENDSARS protest and the violence that trailed the shooting of the #ENDSARS protesters had prevented LCC from operating at the toll plazas located along the Lekki-Ikoyi Link Bridge and Admiralty Circle plaza along the Lekki-Epe Expressway.

LCC employees are stationed at the checkpoints to issue tickets to motorists plying the two routes.

About 80,000 vehicles use the tollgates daily and paid between N200 and N1,000 depending on the vehicle-type.

Reports had said the state government lost N234 million during the three weeks the protest lasted.

Ripples Nigeria analysis revealed that the Lagos State government lost about N1.5 billion between November 2020 and January 2021 at the Admiralty toll gate.

READ ALSO: SERAP demands release of detained #OccupyLekki protesters, threatens to sue Nigerian police

Monthly earnings on the Admiralty tollgate were put at N500 million while daily income was pegged at about N16.6 million.

For the Lekki-Ikoyi Link Bridge, the operators generated N10 million daily and about N300 million monthly.

Ripples Nigeria understands that N900 million has been lost on the Lekki-Ikoyi Link Bridge between November 2020 and January this year.

The development has thus confirmed the popular assertion that the toll gate is a cash cow to the state government.

Tollgate was a source of revenue for the Nigerian government until 1999 when former President Olusegun Obasanjo ordered the removal of the various structures on the country’s highways.

But the Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, said in 2019 the Federal Government was looking at the possibility of returning the tollgate on the highways.

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