Telling of your desire for a road trip to any region of the country comes to your loved ones like a death wish nowadays. It unsettles people – it sounds to them like hearing someone dear announce an intention to commit suicide. In a broader sense, planning a road trip to any state in Nigeria from another state in another geo-political zone of the country elicits the same feeling among people. In Nigeria, road trips are frightening, unsettling, cumbersome, burdensome and tiring. It could also be deadly. Ask some mothers and fathers why they do not wish to have their children posted far from familiar terrains for the Nigerian National Youth Service. They will likely promptly refer you to stories they have heard of other parents whose children set out for NYSC but neither got there nor returned whole.
At home, for instance, tell your wife of your plan to embark on a road trip to any state where you are not a frequent visitor, even in the geo-political zone where you are resident, and gauge her sincere reaction. It is usually telling you of their discomfort with the idea. Her reaction is most likely what most Nigerians, concerned about the state of our roads, feel when trips are by road. Nigerian roads are a solid source of worry to people on different fronts – personal safety, personal health, vehicular health, vehicular safety, and economy. The state of Nigerian roads creates additional security worries for the citizenry.
I made a road trip to Port Harcourt a few months ago. I did not enjoy the ride as I had wished. I was determined to enjoy it but it was anything but smooth – the comfort or otherwise of the vehicle is not even the issue. In addition to the jagged roads and numerous types of crazy drivers were the deliberate bottlenecks. The seemingly unfettered ride from Ibadan soon ended at somewhere in Ijebu-Ode. All over the country, internal (township) roads have their special value in creating worries for road users, and you would think the expressways would ease the burden like a school of thought believes getting married would ease the burden of spousal infidelity. Zsa Zsa Gabor contends that “a man in love is incomplete until you get married. Then you’re finished.”
You’d think the expressway would mean that you have arrived at ease of movement, but when you connect the Benin-Ore-Shagamu road at Ijebuland, then “you’re finished”. You are soon to encounter numerous roadblocks mounted by all the arms of Nigeria’s security apparatchik, except, maybe the Nigeria Air Force or the Nigerian Navy. These roadblocks are positioned metres apart from one another. You could see the next roadblock through the built-up traffic ahead of you when you are done with the one dealing with you or which you are dealing with.
The Benin Bypass used to be hellish but users have been saved the shame when they veer there to continue their journey to the South-East. It was recently repaired and hordes of the bottlenecks were reduced. But the Benin-Warri axis of the road, which was seen as a paradise, has been lost to unchecked dilapidation. Now, like John Milton’s eternal poem, the Benin-Warri Road is “paradise lost”. Your strength would be sapped, and endurance tested especially while you commute from Benin City to Effunrun/Warri and on to the East-West Road towards Mbiama/Yenagoa.
The beleaguered East-West Road is one of the star examples of bad governance in Nigeria. If we don’t want to smear the white apparel of our various great governments, we can say the road is a stand-out example of how not to treat taxpayers and other citizens by their government. This very important road connects Warri, Yenagoa, and Port Harcourt, and continues to Eleme, Onne, and Ogoniland in Rivers State, and so on. It is an example of the roads of disgrace to our country because it is the road that runs through the heart of our lucrative hydro-carbon hubs.
It came to mind after the accident last Saturday that claimed lives and property on May Day 2024. The accident reportedly claimed five lives and 120 vehicles. The huge carnage was a result of the very bad portions of the East-West Road on that axis. It is needless to say it has been perpetually under construction. During the first tenure of the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo, the Warri-Port Harcourt road was a single-carriageway, and since it was awarded for expansion and dualisation in 2003 or thereabouts, it has been under construction. The East-West Road was one of the conditions for peace Niger Delta militants gave during the Obasanjo administration. The road is still as bad as it can get and the helpless citizens can only call and shout for help to governments that have other priorities.
Umuahia-Ikot Ekpene Road and Aba-Ikot Ekpene Road – both in Abia State, are some metaphors for unreasonableness in their own rights. They are short roads but long trips. Travel from Umuahia (Abia State) to Uyo (Akwa Ibom State) using the Umuahia-Ikot Ekpene Road and you will be saving so many hours of harrowing road trip. But the road has remained in a perpetual state of disrepair for some inexplicable reasons. Imagine journeying in harsh conditions for three and half hours between Okene, Kogi State and Ukpilla, Edo State instead of just about minutes if the road was good? Ever travelled Oturkpo-Enugu or Benin-Auchi? These are sparse examples to show that among the many ugly faces that hardship makes for Nigerians, not a few are found on our roads.
A notorious fact in our sorry-road story is that nearly all the worst examples of bad roads in Nigeria are ‘federal roads’. A community leader once asked at a forum why the Akure-Ado Ekiti road was in such a bad state of disrepair and the only answer he got was “It’s a federal road.” That was a euphemistic way of saying to the man and his people “Go and wait, it’s not your turn yet.” While the communities on these kinds of roads wallow in physical pain and economic agony, some of them would wonder why the Federal Government will not shed some of the burdens by relinquishing these roads (for example) to states and back the states with additional resources. Then, there would be better answers when questions are asked about the poor conditions of roads. That is one of the numerous components of the word ‘restructuring’.
These roads, however, do not define who we are as Nigerians. We are not like the tortoise who said he was bad on the inside, and was told that from his ugly shell which is the outside, they could see a ready-made pointer to what he would look like on the inside. Our bad, abandoned, ugly, dilapidated roads are not a representation of how we are as a people. Rather, it is a sign that we are suffering and have not been properly governed. It is also a sign that our country’s political leadership has chosen to do what suits them and not what might grow the country. It is a pointer to the fact that Nigeria leaves bad roads to build new ones. Nigeria will ignore the need to rehabilitate and repair bad existing roads to start new ones, like the controversial coastal road that the Tinubu administration has stubbornly decided to build. This is not good enough.
A Nigerian resident in the USA celebrates his birthdays with long road trips in which he drives from one corner of the United States to another for several days. He doesn’t even attempt driving whenever he is in Nigeria.
Many Nigerians would also have loved to drive around the country to see the country. Sadly, our roads do not encourage that. Insecurity in the country also does not encourage that kind of adventure. Nigerian senators affirmed that when they listed bad roads as one of the reasons for settling for prohibitively expensive SUVs as utility vehicles. So, our roads do not encourage or support sundry economic activities and tourism. This doesn’t bother our government. We leave the bad roads to build new ones and watch the bad roads consume us all. This is sad!
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