Orange Vests at Fagba Junction: ST Tamandu Marine Patrol Takes on Traffic at Iju-Ishaga
By Our Correspondent
Fagba Junction, at the intersection of Iju-Ishaga Road, is one of those Lagos chokepoints that commuters know by feel before they know it by name. The junction feeds traffic from multiple directions into a space that was not designed for the volume it now carries daily. In the mornings and evenings, it locks. Vehicles stack up. Okada’s thread through gaps that barely exist. The frustration is audible and familiar. On this occasion, when the orange vests appeared, something shifted.
The deployment did not happen informally. Before members of ST Tamandu Marine Patrol took position at Fagba Junction, the patrol had entered into dialogue with the police division on Iju Road, securing formal approval from the Investigating Police Officer before a single vest was put on. That process mattered. Voluntary traffic management by a civic organisation on a public road is an act that carries responsibility, and the patrol was deliberate about doing it within a proper framework of coordination with the relevant authority. The approval granted, the delegation moved.
Wearing high-visibility vests bearing the De Norsemen Kclub International insignia and the words “Sealand FLT on Duty, Tamandu MP,” members deployed across the junction and began directing traffic. The work was physical, patient, and unglamorous. Arms out. Vehicles waved through. Motorcycles held back. The rhythm of a clogged junction, broken down and rebuilt one car at a time. Chief Dr. Adeshola Qiwa, Skol Executioner of De Norsemen Kclub International, was present on the ground, working alongside the delegation rather than watching from a distance.
Traffic congestion in Lagos is not simply an inconvenience. It is an economic cost, a health burden, and a daily source of friction that affects the quality of life of millions of residents. The Iju-Ishaga corridor, which connects residential communities to major arterial routes leading into the city, is among the areas where congestion builds earliest and clears latest. For a group of men to give up their time, coordinate with the police, put on reflective vests, and stand in a junction for hours is an act that most people who benefit from it will never know happened. That is precisely the point.
The presence of Chief Dr. Adeshola Qiwa at the junction alongside Sailing Skipper Jubril Babatunde and the patrol delegation spoke to the seriousness with which the operation was mounted. This was not a gesture. It was a deployment, planned, cleared with authority, and carried out with the discipline that the situation demanded. Sailing Skipper Jubril Babatunde, addressing the group before they took position, reminded members that the patrol’s mandate has always extended to whatever the community needs. “If the road needs us, we are on the road,” he said. “Service has no fixed address.”
ST Tamandu Marine Patrol is the Lagos chapter of De Norsemen Kclub International, a non-profit brotherhood incorporated under RC 7458 and committed to community development, volunteer service, advocacy, and leadership. The Fagba Junction traffic management exercise is part of the patrol’s ongoing Service to Humanity programme, which has taken members into schools, correctional facilities, public roads, and communities across Lagos.
They got the approval. They put on the vests. They stood in the junction and moved the traffic. For the commuters who made it through Fagba that day a little faster, the orange vests were simply part of the road. For the men wearing them, it was service. Same thing, different angle.
For more information about ST Tamandu Marine Patrol and its community programmes, visit www.santatamandu.org