While Eid Prayer Was Ongoing, Most Modes of Transportation Were On Static Motion

Murtala Muhammed International Airport Ikeja, Lagos, at 1.44 p.m., Monday, 30th March 2025

First, apologies to the entire team that organized the display of the proposed, but now temporarily frozen, national airline, Nigeria Air’s livery, launched or displayed for Nigerians on 27th May 2023.

One of the amusing responses to the barrage of queries from Nigerians gave birth to the new phrase, “static display”. Hence, the phrase has entered Nigeria’s aviation media lexicon.

From “static display”, this writer also draws an inference by curating from the phrase, static display, a similar phrase thus, “static motion” as used in the above headline of this report.

While responding to the call of duty, on Eid Mubarak, to feel the transportation pulse on the day Eid prayer was said on Monday, 31st of March 2025, a striking lull was observed on the highways in Lagos State.

Curiously, the entire multimodal means of transportation in Lagos state experienced a dearth in the movement of passengers, cargo and the very low number of operators available to provide necessary service with their various means of transportation.

Most motor parks for interstate travel experienced a great lull. Even those that were bubbling with passengers and vehicles in less than 24 hours to the time of visitation on Monday were seen operating with small number of passengers and vehicles.

Also, some routes renowned for high vehicular and human traffic- often very busy roads- were somehow deserted. The ferry stations also experienced a lull in passenger movement.

Visits to both the domestic and international terminals of Murtalla Muhammed Airport, MMA, Ikeja, Lagos, revealed similar experiences. The entire terminals at Lagos airport were almost bare.

Very few vehicles were seen on the airport roads. Both from the Mafoluku-Oshodi route to the airport and from Maryland through Mobolaji Bank Anthony way, movement of people either by tricycle, motorcycle, commercial bus, car hailing and other private vehicles were very scanty.

A chat with different social and economic groups of Lagosians elicited various reasons, yet they are contiguous for keeping commuting on hold during the holidays.

Plausible arguments were advanced for the very low passenger and aircraft movement at the Lagos airport on Monday. One of the points elicited was that more often, air travelers would not want to travel on the day of the festival. The fear of frequent flight cancellations and protracted flight delays have been the motivation for early travel plans.

For the roads and highways that were deserted, which signified highly reduced recreational activities and very low leisure trips to places of interest to catch fun; people fingered the economic condition which adversely impacted the cost of fuel and directly responsible for high fares for transportation.

These factors have compelled majority of the citizenry to improvise on indoor fun and recreation within walking distance to their residence or two or three streets away to individual homes.

Since the official national public holiday ends today, and people must resume to work on Wednesday, tomorrow, commercial transportation for road, rail, water, and air will gather momentum today. By tomorrow, every transportation will be in motion and at full throttle. And not static motion

Picture credit: Elder Isaac Ayodele Jimoh

About Post Author