Wazobaa-Wazobia-Yoruba-Hausa-Igbo-Nigeria-News

By Michael Chika Umudu

Nigerian roads and the awful experiences of travellers

Silence seems to prevail in recent times amongst the critics of the deplorable state of Nigerian roads. Perhaps, ‘there is something ominous in silence’. People have cried, shouted and protested the lost of lives and property particularly on the federal roads still the situation is getting worse day-by-day. Both electronic and print media have shown gully pictures and written many articles about the unimaginable hardship road users are subjected to, and not even the power of the mass media is enough to propel government to action. Indeed, the roads are getting worse and the helpless Nigerians are at the receiving end. They are robbed, harassed and of course killed on the neglected roads. It is however an irony that the situation is worst in the southern parts of the country especially the south-east.

A thought of a journey through the roads could repel one. Yet it is a risk that must be taken as the alternative air space seems to be a preserve of the minority elites. The bad state of the roads has survived several administrations. Over fifteen years now, the successive administrations left worst situations despite remedies they promised at the inception their respective administrations. They allocate a lion share of federal yearly budgets for the repairs and construction of new roads. They usually appoint well known public figures to preside over the ministry in charge of roads. In all, neither the ministers explain why they could not reverse the situation nor account for the high budgetary allocations to the ministry.

During the administration of Rtd. General Ibrahim Babangida toll-gates were introduced as a means of generating revenues that would be used to repair the roads. He promised Nigerians that the tolls paid on a given stretch of road would be invested directly on the same road and that the usual government bureaucracy had been eliminated. Hope was therefore raised and soon toll-gate and toll-bridges sprang up in geometric progression on federal roads throughout the nation. The fees charged were regularly increased still no improvement. Instead the situation continued to worsen, forcing motorists to run through old roads and local roads in other to avoid worst portions of the federal roads.

The administration of was no different. Abacha for the first time popularized in Nigeria the term “deregulation”. He deregulated the petroleum sub-sector and as the result the prices of petroleum products were increased by more than three hundred percent. One of the major reasons he advanced was that the money realized from the sector would be used to improve the infrastructure including the road network. Until Abacha died in 1998 no significant improvement was noticed apart from some improvements recorded in the northern part of the country.

In the wake of the present democratic experiment, ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo raised the hope of Nigerians when he said that the days of rot was over. He introduced what can be described as deeper but abused deregulation policy. Prices of petroleum products and other public utilities were regularly increased with the assurance that the money realized would be used to bring about infrastructure comparable to what is obtainable in the developed countries. The increments and money realized amounts to thousands of percent but what Nigerians were left with at the end of his eight-year old administration was unbelievable sorry state of infrastructure. The roads became worse. Indeed the roads are now death traps and the people seem to have surrendered to their fate.

The worst amongst the federal roads are Lagos-Benin-Asaba Road, Onitsha-Enugu Road, Enugu-Port Harcourt road, Oba-Nnewi-Okigwe Road, Lagos-Ibadan Road and numerous others. The current minister of Transport, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, on assumption of office in 2007 promised to quickly address the problems. She also condemned the previous administrations for allowing the roads to degenerate into the present condition. But almost two year into President Umaru Yar’Adua’s administration which Alison-Madueke serves, the situation remained the same.

Nigerians in the diaspora are also expresing their shock at the sorry state of the road network in their home land. The situation which some of them said has discouraged them from visiting home. Perhaps, they have options, they can stay back in the foreign lands where the host governments take full responsibility for such facilities.

Domocracy which the common Nigerians had hoped has not been able to bring about the much expected dividents. The elected executives and the legislators have formed an elite club where they distribute the available resources amongst themselves. They have enough resourses to buy fleight tickets, hire herocopters and of course provide special security for themselves. They have usurped the power of the people and subjected the people to the state of trauma. They alocate votes to themselves and no one dares question them. They chase away or even kill those who seem to represent the interest of the masses and ravage the land with reckless abandon. And as they have expected, the people seem preocupied with their meagre earnings and could only talk but can’t bite or effect any change in their leadership.

If top government officials travel by road often as the common Nigerians do, of course they would have done something on these roads the first day a crack appeared on any of them. But they and their families travel by air where greater safety exists and where each life lost or abused is accounted for. But roads such as Lagos-Binin road are mainly for the poor and less influential members of the public who are not only exposed to numerous dangers on the road but sometimes get to their respective destinations very late in the night. As they arrive late at their destinations they are exposed to further dangers owing to the highly flawed security system in most parts of the country. Silence may prevail in the present times but certainly one day the situation would be reversed and the officers of the state will be made to really account for their stewardships.