By Bernadette Idalu
Motorists avoiding end SARS/SWAT protesters who took control of Santana Market, playing soccer on the ever busy Benin/Sapele Road in the morning, on Monday, October 19, 2020, made use of exit routes such as the Etete Link Road and other connecting roads to get to their destination.
As the gridlock built around Adesuwa and Etete street, emptying into Upper Imadiyi, Oriokpa, Mabel Erewa, up to Limit Road as motorists avoided the protest at Santana Market, decorating their cars with green leaves as an outward sign of support, residents lamented on the overstretched Upper Imadiyi/Oriokpa Road axis which gradually began to sink cars due to their bad state.
Some motorists and passengers were seen sipping brands of liqueur as they drove by even as concerned people on the streets directed pupils with uniforms on, to go back home. Incidentally, these people went on to make their own compendium of demands on government, asking the Nigerian president to step aside.
Youths who wanted to hijack the process could not muscle up enough energy to actualize their plans as they reasoned on making bonfires/blocking the road with tyres to facilitate the process of collecting toll of a hundred naira(N100) for easy passage by motorists.
Even as reports later came in on efforts of soldiers who cleared up the protest at Santana Market which cleared up the gridlock on Etete axis and it’s immediate environs, it must be stated that the end SARS/SWAT protest just like the COVID 19 pandemic has had a negative effect on the education sector and dealt a blow to the economic wellbeing of Nigerians.
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