The rains are here. Thank God. The heat was becoming unbearable and many times I thought perhaps I was in hell because hell cannot be hotter than this. I hope America will experience the same kind of heat we had this year in Nigeria to shut the loud mouths of those members of the Republican Party who deny the scientificity of global warming. Throughout the dry season from December 2015 to March, many of us anxiously looked forward to substantial work being done on the Lagos – Ibadan expressway. But alas nothing was done and hundreds of people are still dying needlessly on the most travelled road in Nigeria. Even if our government does not care for the people using the road, it should be concerned about the economic damage this bad road is doing to the country. This road is the artery connecting the major port of Lagos which is also the economic nerve centre of the country to the north and other parts of the south of the country. Rudimentary knowledge of economics would indicate the fundamental importance of transportation in the life of a country. A country that is not in constant movement is a dead country. In our situation where we do not have railways, and where there is only primitive use of water-ways and our aviation leaves much to be desired, we just cannot do without tolerably good roads.
We have been given some reasons for this delay ranging from various lawsuits in the courts to the need to secure adequate funding. The way things are going on in this country, we may die under the weight of irresponsible litigations. As for the lawsuits, there is need for out of court settlement. The owner of the company suing the government is a well known patriot. Certainly, he will not like to be associated with a situation that has led to the death of many innocent struggling Nigerians whose only crime if crime it is, is that they are struggling for their economic sustenance through the use of this jinxed road. This trajectory of out of court settlement must be embarked upon immediately. It is not one of these issues that must be allowed to linger on indefinitely. We just cannot wait. Any further deaths on the road is blood in the hands of those who should fix the road. If out of court arbitration fails, this government should be strong enough to damn the consequence in the public interest. I mean heaven will not fall! The government which owns the land should declare the company a trespasser and build the road. Enough of Turenci!
I do not know how difficult it is for this government to borrow money for high priority and urgent infrastructural development. I am sure a loan can be easily syndicated through a consortium of banks that are daily declaring humongous profits. Funding a project like this should be regarded as part of their corporate social responsibility and support for national economic recovery. If banks for whatever reasons would not lend to government, then the pensions commission should be approached to invest part of the trillions of Naira pension fund on the project on purely commercial basis. Their investment would be recovered by tolling the road and giving the power to collect the tolls to reputable banks rather than to government agencies to avoid sure and certain embezzlement.
In a depressed economy like ours, road construction may actually be a panacea for employment and joblessness. In other words, we can kill two birds with one stone. I am therefore suggesting to this government a policy of country-wide road reconstruction as a way of reflating the economy, using if necessary, local banks as funding agencies and making sure all the roads are tolled. Priority roads all over the world are built and maintained in this way thus ensuring that road users pay for construction and maintenance of national highways. What Nigerians want is functionality of infrastructure. When available our people are prepared to pay for services. In the process of constructing these roads, young Nigerian civil engineers must be allowed to work along with whatever companies are given the contracts so that in future there will be a pool of people knowledgeable in road maintenance. The time has also come when we should begin to use interlocking cement and stone blocks in making critical roads to ensure that they last long. This policy easily recommends itself because of our recent self-sufficiency in cement, thanks in this respect to private entrepreneurs like Dangote and Lafarge. I have said it before and I will say it again: one of our problems in Africa is that we are slaves to economic orthodoxy. If something has not been done before, we are not prepared to try it yet the only way we as a country can make a mark in this world is to travel the path least travelled. The greatest resource a country can have is its people. If well trained, they can be mobilized with committed and dedicated leadership to take their country to the highest point of development. We cannot say we do not have sufficiently well trained people to accomplish this rudimentary work of road construction.
An American academic colleague of mine wondered recently why Nigeria does not have functioning infrastructure, railways, roads, reliable aviation, regular power supply and things that work generally considering the fact that there are Nigerians in the USA helping to build power stations and pipelines carrying fuel across the country and also participating in the space projects. Nobody has an answer to our situation of arrested development. As I write this, there is pitch darkness where I am. The generator has broken down as any mechanical thing is bound to do and the so-called privatized power companies have failed to generate and distribute power to my area of the country. Sometimes I worry if my grandchildren will in future be writing about power after I would have passed on. There is no serious indication that this will not be the case unless God has mercy on us.
I beg the people in authority to rise to the occasion and reconstruct this Lagos -Ibadan road and stop the carnage. I hope we do not get to a stage in this country when out of our collective frustration, citizens may be forced to take those responsible for this carnage to the world court to face charges of deliberate and premeditated murder of members of the traveling public.
This article was written before the ghastly accident that took the life of Miss Rosemary Asuquo Nkanta an angel if ever there was one. This innocent soul came all the way from Jos where she was on the NYSC to join her former colleagues in REDEEMER’S UNIVERSITY in FEAST of PRAISE (FOP) She was on her way to Lagos to fly back to Jos. She never made it. She was involved in an accident that took her life near Sagamu. She graduated First Class last September. The Nigerian condition killed this innocent soul. May God forgive all those who were directly or vicariously responsible for her death. Adieu Rosemary. May God condole your parents and all your friends and teachers at Redeemers University. You were one in a million.
NATION
END
Be the first to comment