SIR: On Thursday November 7, my wife travelled to Abuja from Benin City to attend a wedding ceremony of her nephew. The journey took her and other co-passengers in a bus not less than 10 hours because of the BAD Benin- Auchi- Lokoja- Abuja highway. When she returned to the ancient city, she narrated how the bus driver escaped death on two occasions from assaults of masked herdsmen who took advantage of the bad route.
The other day at Onitsha, we spent three hours inside a gridlock in the commercial city while travelling in a bus to Calabar. The Calabar axis was not better either as we nearly slept at Odukpani before reaching our destination after more than 12 hours on the bad roadways.
There was a bad portion of the Benin-Warri road, a short distance, that was so bad that young men who looked like brawlers backed passengers across the spot for a few until Governor Ifeanyi Okowa mercifully came to the rescue and checked the nightmare. Our highways are filled with potholes, gullies and craters. They have become notorious death traps sending many to their early graves.
Nigerian roadways are getting worse and hazardous to negotiate on daily basis. Our newspapers scream of lives being lost in tens and tens of numbers to the dismay of terror-struck Nigerians who expect our government at state and federal levels to fix our roads so that they can feel safe on them. Certainly, the citizens did not vote for this pain to their necks.
To sum this piece, I wish to quote the National Executive Committee of Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities in a meeting at Adekunle Ajasin University,Ondo State from October 30 – 31:”It is indeed shameful that a country which has realized billions of dollars in crude oil revenue for years cannot maintain its roads, no thanks to endemic corruption which has eaten into the fabric of the nation. NEC therefore appeals to the federal government to declare a state of emergency on Nigerian roads to save Nigerians from avoidable loss of lives through road accidents and other mishaps.
- Unoakhe, Daniels Ikiebe. Calabar.
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