Nigeria’s road network failure – Part 2

Recently, I was invited by a client to take up a matter in some part of Ogun State but when he mentioned that I had to go through the Lagos-Ota expressway area, I became scared and discouraged, given the dreary tales of many Nigerians on that road. Now back to my traveling experience. I set out from Lagos to Sagamu and then to Ijebu-Ode. Some portions of the road from Sagamu to Ijebu-Ode have failed totally, ditto some other portions from Ijebu-Ode to Ajebandele, but there were some motorable portions of the road up to Ore. The Ore-Ondo-Akure road has remained the single carriage way as was built during the Action Group years.

My plan was to journey from Akure to Ado-Ekiti but when I got to Akure, I was told point blank by my colleague that I should not even dream of the journey from Akure to Ado-Ekiti, which is a federal road that has collapsed completely. We drove back to Akure-Ilesha road and then veered off to some narrow pathway to meander to Ado-Ekiti, spending long dreary hours to get there.

My colleague then narrated to me the sad story of the Akure-Ado-Ekiti expressway. In response to the plea of many citizens, the governor of Ekiti State was said to have approached the African Development Bank through which it secured about $100M as loan to embark upon the rehabilitation of the road. The expectation was that being a federal road, the federal government would endorse the loan and give a guarantee for repayment. However, that loan could not be accessed because the federal government declined to endorse the deal and so every day, people spend hours on a road that should take a travel time of less than one hour.

When I finished my court session in Ado-Ekiti, we drove back to Akure to drop off my colleague and then continued my journey to Kogi State. This was where I saw hell. A little after Akure inward Owo, I saw loads of trailers and trucks all parked in rows, spanning long kilometres on end. They were all parked in a stationary position while all the drivers resigned in frustration. I saw a good number of them on their mats, eating, sleeping or just gazing hopelessly.

The smaller vehicles were allowed to drive past a narrow path as the trailers had blocked the main expressway. We later diverted into a bush path through a muddy road leading to some villages before we got back to the Akure-Owo expressway again. On the other side also, we saw another long line of trailers inward Akure from Owo, parked in rows. How can we have a nation like this, I was wondering in my mind?

From Owo to Akoko region was fairly okay through the hills and valleys up to the Edo State portion which has also failed. I finally got to Kogi State towards the evening, tired and worn out. I concluded my assignment the following day and set out for Akure and met the same set of trailers still parked on the Akure-Owo expressway.

We veered into the bush path once again to get to the Akure airport zone and through Oba Ile into Akure town to Ondo and Ore. A little before Ijebu-Ode, we started the hiccup on to Sagamu and then the final lap of Sagamu-Lagos end of expressway. We then joined the long queue on the long bridge, spending another two and a half hours through the narrow lane that Julius Berger created for motorists in order to execute the road rehabilitation and finally got into Lagos around 10pm.

When I narrated my experience to some of my friends, their response was that this is what many Nigerians go through across the nation. So, in eight years, no single super highway has been built and the roads being rehabilitated have not been concluded and there is no assurance that they will ever be concluded before the end of this administration. Permit me to say that in the area of road construction and rehabilitation, section 14 (2) (b) of the Constitution has not been activated by the Buhari administration. This may be due to the rainy season however. You be the judge.

Concluded

Adegboruwa is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN).