- By Chike Okolocha
From whatever direction you enter or leave Effurun, the headquarter of Uvwie Local Government Area of Delta State, you are astounded by the intensity of blight, congestion, disorder and physical chaos. The experience is the same as you drive within the city. It is all too obvious that, from all parameters, Effurun is overurbanised, having outgrown its carrying capacity by far and is in urgent need of attention from everyone, inclusive of government.
Prior to the creation of Uvwie LGA, Effurun lived under the shadow of Warri. The emergence of the new LGA thus signposted the formal geopolitical divide between the two cities, a schism owed largely to heady ethnic identity politics by which Effurun sought to differentiate itself, at least geographically from Warri, a more famous city with which it has merged imperceptibly. The merger itself is owed to unprecedented in-migration and rapid urbanisation after the Nigerian Civil War, prior to which Warri-Effurun lived under the shadow of Sapele. The point of mergence between the “twin cities” of Effurun and Warri was said to be at a place popularly known as Marine Quarters along the arterial Warri-Sapele Road. Presently there are no markers to identify the boundary, yet, in our minds, Effurun is different from Warri.
To whom or to what can we attribute the anarchy in Effurun? Nigerians typically lay all blames on government but can Effurun complain of neglect by government? With the presence of ample public oil-sector investments, it seems that Effurun can claim parity with Warri as an oil city. Similarly, Effurun is one of the better endowed cities in terms of road networks and, as a link to Ughelli, Ovwian-Aladja, Ogbe-Ijo and (of course) Warri to the southeast and south as well as Sapele to the west, it should be a transportation hub. Effurun is also well endowed with public educational institutions including the historic Urhobo College, University of Petroleum Resources (FUPRE) and the all-important Petroleum Training Institute (PTI) as well as other ill-maintained public and private schools.
Rather than mature into a transportation hub, Effurun has inherited mayhem as virtually all the roads and streets have been turned into motor parks with the tricycle (keke) as the default mode of transportation. In addition to intracity passenger movement, keke is used in haulage, towing and even in intercity movement of men and materials. Motorists in all parts of the city are constantly harassed by keke whose operators’ dare-devilry is complemented by their rudeness and uncouthness. The vital PTI Road is particularly clogged, with keke probably outnumbering passengers. Indeed, Effurun has a keke problem.
Although every road junction in Effurun is a passenger pick-up and drop-off zone for keke and other commercial vehicles, there are actually three major boiling points in the public transportation chaos. First is the approach into the city from Sapele on the A2 Federal Highway. This area starts from about 3km up to the Effurun Roundabout. It includes a public and several private motor parks as well as the recently introduced shanty market by the Army Barracks. The next is by Eku/Osubi Junction on the Ughelli-Patani carriageway. But the most intense area is Enerhen Junction, perhaps the busiest spot in the city. These are three hotspots of traffic confusion as pedestrians, keke and other commercial and non-commercial vehicles, petty traders, POS operators, vagrants and touts, food vendors and hawkers, cart pushers, buyers and passengers all jostle for priority and space without consideration for each other. At times, overwhelmed traffic control officials merely watch the disorder in consternation. Air pollution is said to be worse at Enerhen Junction than anywhere else in Effurun. Motorists who attempt to avoid these three hotspots will encounter less intense chaos in other parts of the city.
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The euphoria of the election of an “Effurun-boy” as the governor of Delta State has been rounded-off with the inauguration of a “flyover” bridge project through which motorists will fly over the traffic bottleneck between Effurun Roundabout and DSC Roundabout. This is very commendable. But virtually all the existing roads are infested with potholes. In fact potholes in the approach to the first flyover bridge built by the state government have negated the expected benefits of the bridge and further confounded the traffic bottleneck at Effurun Roundabout. Priority ought to be given to the patching of these ill-maintained roads. Effurun has a huge road maintenance problem.
This problem dogs all infrastructures in the city. For example, the debacle of waste management is perceptible even to the blind. Uvwie LGA to which waste management is statutorily assigned seems to have no idea of what to do while the Delta State Waste Management Board has been apparently slumbering since its creation in 2004. The dumpsite at Edjeba Road measuring only 520m by 245m is grossly inadequate, yet it continues to receive well over 100 tonnes of mixed wastes every day. These wastes are unsegregated and untreated and the dumpsite is a veritable health hazard. If this hazard is known to the Delta State Environmental Protection Agency, no visible remediation has been initiated.
The waste management calamity in Effurun explains the ubiquity of all manners and sizes of waste dumpsites in all roads and streets in the city. The streets are hardly swept and waste collection is tokenistic even in the medium-density Effurun GRA, and as nothing is done with the minuscule quantity of waste collected. The impact of private metal and plastic waste collectors has not been assessed but obviously things would have been worse without them.
Because Nigerians have agreed with government that it cannot provide water and electricity, Effurun is eminently challenged by shortages of these utilities. Lack of potable water explains why the Effurun environment is choking with empty plastic water bottles and sachets of “pure” water. Self-help in water supply has resulted in the construction of hundreds of boreholes for domestic water supply. In addition to the health hazard of drinking raw water from boreholes, there is no consideration for the increasing vacuum being created underground.
And in spite of symbolic solar-powered street lights, Effurun is verily in darkness every night. Noise from the thousands of electric power generators is only one aspect of heavy environmental pollution in Effurun. Other sources of pollution include exhaust fumes from the self-same generators and motor vehicles, burning of wastes and tyres, etc. A casual observer cannot fail to see the “gaslight” from the flaring of residual gas at the petroleum refinery. All these have added up with sundry pollutions from petroleum exploration and exploitation activities to give rise to annual toxic acid rains in Effurun and other parts of the Niger Delta during the lengthy rainy season. It does not seem as anyone is taking note of this danger or doing anything about it.
Away from infrastructure and environmental pollution, Effurun is notorious for the omnipresence of “area boys” who charge themselves with enforcing development levies (popularly known as deve) which invariably end up in private pockets. Deve includes all manners of levies (and government rates) imposed on motorists, tricyclists, market men and women, artisans, petty traders and hawkers, cart pushers, waste collectors, POS operators and even unwary pedestrians. Deve is usually enforced by uniformed or plain-clothed operatives who ply their nefarious trade in the presence of “helpless” police and other officials. Intimidation and violence are their watchwords and woes betide anyone who resists deve. This situation has turned Effurun into a lawless terror zone and, indeed, deve has exacerbated recent spikes in insecurity occasioned by banditry and kidnapping for ransom.
Having participated in the clearing of the shanty market at the present site of Shoprite in 2004, I affirm that the new shanty market by the Army Barracks near Effurun Roundabout is a case of history repeating itself. It will certainly require more effort and resources to clear the new shanty market when government decides to do so in future as it must. Therefore, the time to act is now.
The lethargy of town planning and development control officials is directly implicated in the Effurun urban tragedy. They look the other way while myriads of illegal structures and buildings are tucked into all corners and traders’ shacks are built right onto the road, in some instances covering drainage gutters. Indeed, the minor gains of the 2004 clearance of illegal structures have been reversed and the prospects of restoring physical order in the city are very grim.
In the second decade of the Urban Century, Effurun is obviously negating the role of the city as a harbinger of economic development and modernity. The city ought to be taken seriously and its spontaneous degeneration into a shantytown ought to be halted immediately. The first step in this direction should be the revision of the Warri-Effurun Master Plan which expired in 2019. Thereafter, there ought to be a conscious effort to implement the revised plan. To do this, the plan ought to be accepted by the generality of the people against the backdrop of accepted principles of modern urbanity.
•Prof. Okolocha is of Social Science Academy of Nigeria (SSAN), Abuja.
