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Tuesday 20 May 2014

Old Oshodi in Lagos Paid Off

Talking about the traffic situation we experience daily, mostly during the rush hours and even off peak hours.
Thank God for LASMA, they have being able to bring relief to the traffic situations in Lagos. Do you still remember the old Oshodi with its peculiar traffic stand still? Thanks to Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola, for tthe transformation of Oshodi, there is now sanity on that road. This is where I am going, back in the 1994, some smart guys took advantage of the situation at Oshodi, both as a tourist site and also won themselves a good business deal.
A young graduate from the university of Benin, with his friend who just arrived from Europe invited some investors from Europe to Nigeria, upon arrival, they where interested in trade and oil and gass, as discussions were going on durind a meeting, the young graduate suggested, they could kick-start the deal by investing in transportation because the process was much faster than that of the oil and gass. The young man had to do a lot of convincing and persuasion, since transportation business wasn't their primary goal. So he promised to take them somewhere special to see things for themselves, the foreign investors were about five in number. Guess where he took them to? OSHODI! They were there at rush hour in the evening, they had never seen such concentration of people and vehicular activities before, (we break a lot of records that are not recorded, we will discuss that matter later on),  the investors started taking pictures, fascinated by the sea of people and activities, you can imagine watching people trying to board a bus and entering through every available entrance such as the door, windows and through the boot of buses....
Tell me what other proof do you need to convince any one that it is a lucrative sector to invest, smart Nigerian. OSHODI paid off.
After three months Seven Fifty-sitter buses and a Luxury bus arrived at the Lagos sea port.  In the tourism industry you can take advantage of any situation and bring out the art and beauty even if it is a red light situation.
Tell me, WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE YOUNG GRADUATE?  I will love to read  your views and coments om this. Thank you.
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3 comments:

  1. wow! what a scene! Oshodi was no go area! but to d white investors! they were amazed! really nice!

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  2. Oshodi, there was a day I passed by at Night, I almost didn't know it was the same place, there were light everywhere, and it was just awesome, the transformation is impressive. That guy is a true Nigerian.

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  3. Funny enough, some of us couldn't avoid passing that route, back then.

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