| Offoaro - Poet without Borders | |
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Monday, September 12, 2005
- THE ROAD NETWORK DIMENSION |
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"MAY YOUR ROAD BE ROUGH" - YORUBA PROVERB Mr. Prez.
"Not to worry, Mr. Prez." I have reassured myself. Don't you see that the almighty God in his infinite wisdom has as usual prepared a soft-landing ground for us to achieve our worthy aim? Oil is now, nearly 70 USD per barrel. We have been granted a debt relief to the tune of almost 20 billion USD by the Parris Club. Our external reserve has witnessed the most dramatic stability since the Brits created Nigeria. Above all, the National Conference ended on a solid note by prescribing antidotes whose implementation will certainly help ease us into a blissful third term. Unemployment, in our country, though still biting, is easing. Thanks goodness to the enabling, conducive, good business climate which your administration has nurtured into fruition. (Who said that Privatization is not an inevitable, hefty good dosage for a laggard economy?). We come back to that later. Chief Alhaji A. Atiku who thought the presidency will be his for the asking is begging the FBI to please let him be. Now, no matter how he comes out of it, permit me to predict your Excellency, that his political coffin is about being nailed. Do not mess with the FBI; it is not the same thing with the Nigeria SSS. General Babangida has achieved his aim of diverting the focus on his presumed presidential ambition rather than on his looting of the Nigerian treasury. He is, I am sure, very, very thankful to Allah for having you there; else he would have been cooling off in jail by now. I do not hear much from Marwa or Buhari or most of the pretenders to the thrown at Aso any more. They will fall into line when the chips are down. Just remain focused and keep your right foot on the self succession gas pedal. Mr. Prez, Please, Please, tell your kinsmen, I mean the loquacious segment of the Yoruba nation to keep quiet on this issue. At least for now! Unknown to them, they are helping Alhaji, General M. Buhari - that tyrant in demagogic democratic clothing. Tell them to mu suru (be patient) with us. We have a job to do. We want to leave Nigeria better than we met her in 1999.
Mr. President, can you then allow me to comment on one more subject that could help our cause come 2007? Roads! Roads in Nigeria, that is. To begin to reiterate the importance of good motorable roads in Nigeria to you is like teaching a dog an old trick. I understand, your background in the military was civil engineering. That you were once a commissioner for works in federal Nigeria puts you in a better position to understand the subject/import of road network better than my humble self.
Sir, by the nature of my job, it has been possible for me to have recently taken another tour of Nigeria. As usual I went to Abuja by road through Ibadan via Akure, Lokoja and the rest….from there I went up north to Kafanchan, back to Abuja and from Abuja to Kaduna. The accompanying photographs are my witnesses! They can never lie. Believe me, Mr. Prez, photographs don't lie.
Mr. Prez on my way back to the south I passed through Lafia in Nasarawa State into Makurdi, the Benue State capital, then from there to the east of the Niger "from whence I come." I then set off on another journey that took me from Lagos to Oyo town in Oyo State and to Ilorin and back to Lagos. I then went back to the east from Lagos, through Ile-Ife to Ondo town through Okitipupa and then onto Ore before dangling through the dilapidation called Ore/Benin express road into Benin City. And then, a zoom into Onitsha. Mr. President, Nigeria is one large hell of a good place. I must tell you. Let me briefly give you an account of my impression. If I have to award marks on the state of the Nigerian road network, I will say, that your administration has achieved a 45 per cent mark on roads construction or reconstruction. What with the beautiful designs in Abuja and the extension that went up north to Kaduna. The Abuja Kaduna roads are dualized. That is a good score for your reputation. Mr. President, if I may ask: why can't the road from Abuja to Lafia to Makurdi to Enugu be dualized? Is it because of the same famed reason? That the Igbo will benefit? I honestly doubt this.
Mr. President, the constant accidents that occur on that road coupled with intense human loss has become a major embarrassment to civilization and may be an impediment to our cherished aim for a third term bid. Mr. President, the Abuja-Lafia-Makurdi-Enugu road is a sad reminder of the position of the middle belt in present day Nigeria. Why is it that there are hardly any dualized roads in that region? If you have to be fair, the roads in that region given its unique topography and do I add, the region's political importance, should attract more federal attention than they are, at present. The middle belt is very important in our third term political permutation.
Mr. President, while your administration has carried by dualizing the Ibadan-Ife-Akure road, that the Ibadan-Ilorin Road still remains some of the deadliest in terms of vehicular accidents, is not a good testimonial to your focused attention on modernizing Nigeria. The Ibadan-Ilorin road is the major road artery that connects the heart of northern Nigerian with the rest of the country. What the dilapidated Nigerian Railway used to do the Ibadan Ilorin road now does. There is more than a fair share of pressure on that road. Just stand by the road and count the number of trailers moving merchandise and men and malu up and down Nigeria to get convinced of what I am saying. Need we talk of the Owerri-Port Harcourt and or the Owerri-Aba roads? If road construction in any where in the world, is measured by the expectant number of vehicular traffic, the non-dualization and flagrant neglect of these all important roads in the east is at best, a very sad commentary! The United Nations must not be allowed to hear about it. Don't provoke the Biafrans. They are very, very important in our third term bid calculation. Mr. Prez, what is happening to the Shagamu-Ore- Benin Express Road? That road, (I do not know when last you plied it,) is a stinking stain on your golden banner. It may turn the eastern voting plank against us and our cherished ambition. It has decayed beyond modern comprehension. I do not want to be dragged into the debate that, that road is the way it is because it is the road that most Easterners ply on their way home. If that were to be so, why did you tear that (dualize) express road that runs from Benin to Onitsha?
But suddenly, I am reminded that the Onitsha Owerri Road whose reconstruction and dualization you launched with fanfare on the eve of your re-election campaign in 2001 is still almost the way it is. Let me quickly add that from the Onitsha end, you have made progress, but it is at almost a snail pace. Mr. President, please tell Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, your new roads czar in Nigeria to tell the contractors handling that road to hasten their pace of construction. How many more lives will be lost on that road before the federal might descends on it? Besides, the eastern plank of our political game plan may be badly threatened. Roads other than being the artery through which a nation's economic lifeline is usually nurtured and sustained, is also, the most palpable social indices through which the citizenry measure their connection with any government in power. What a wonderful day will it be for the Nigerian citizenry to wake up on the eve of April 2007 to a chest-thumping president seeking a third term with an 80 per cent roads construction achievement as an electioneering slogan. Fancy that Mr. Prez! Lastly Mr. Prez, you can't in good conscience say we do not have the resources. We do. What with the windfall associated with the spike in crude oil prices! What with the debt pardon. What with the average Nigerian now almost heaving a sigh of relief from the left over of military era economic strangulation; what with the new life wire being injected into the university system, lo, the education sector of our economy. What with this great promise of continuity, an expression hitherto made with a fat tongue-in cheek! Once more Mr. Prez: The Roads! Watch the Nigerian Roads! They could kill!
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'm having a mixed feeling of sorts. Looks like you're losing focus. I mean this our self-succession plot. I say this because since my last mail, things have taken a rather, drag dimension. Honestly, I do not know what to attribute it to. We have been so slow to act decisively that Orji Uzor has begun to play his masters' script so well that the seed of doubt being planted is taking roots of sorts. We must fight back.
