The Lekki–Epe Expressway is a expressway connecting the Lekki and Epe districts in
Lagos State
Lagos State ( yo, Ìpínlẹ̀ Èkó) is a States of Nigeria, state in South West (Nigeria), southwestern Nigeria. Of the 36 States of Nigeria, states, it is both the List of Nigerian states by population, most populous and List of Nigerian state ...
.
The Lekki-Epe expressway was first built in the 1980s. It was built during the
Lateef Jakande
Lateef Kayode Jakande (23 July 1929 – 11 February 2021) was a Nigerian journalist and politician who served as governor of Lagos State from 1979 to 1983, and later Minister of Works under the Sani Abacha military regime.
Background
Lateef ...
's administration. It is the second private toll project in Africa. The road construction project was financed by the
African Development Bank
The African Development Bank Group (AfDB) or (BAD) is a multilateral development finance institution headquartered in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, since September 2014. The AfDB is a financial provider to African governments and private companies i ...
. The bank provided a loan of up to US$85 million to help fund the upgrade and rehabilitation of the Lekki to Epe expressway in 2008, and it was based on Public-Private Partnership (PPP) under the Design, Build, Operate (DBOT), and Transfer and Rehabilitate, Operate (ROT) framework/business model.
The Lekki Concession Company manages the toll road.
2020 Massacre
On the night of 20 October 2020, at about 6:50 p.m., members of the Nigerian Army opened fire on unarmed
End SARS
#EndSARS is a decentralised social movement, and series of mass protests against police brutality in Nigeria. The slogan calls for the disbanding of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), a notorious unit of the Nigerian Police with a long ...
protesters at the Lekki toll gate. Amnesty International stated that at least 12 protesters were killed during the shooting. A day after the incident, on 21 October, the governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, after initially denying reports of any loss of lives, admitted in an interview with a CNN journalist that "only two persons were killed".
The Nigerian Army initially denied involvement in the shooting. Still, it later stated that it had deployed soldiers to the toll gate on the orders of the governor of Lagos State.
A month after the shooting, following a CNN documentary, the Nigerian Army admitted to the Lagos Judiciary panel of inquiry into the shooting that it had deployed its personnel to the toll gate with live and blank bullets.
References
Roads in Lagos
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