CRITICS of the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA) are either willfully ignorant of the agency’s ingenious methodology for providing Nigerians with good roads or simply unappreciative of homegrown solutions, and so give the dog a bad name.

One antagonist, the Lagos State House of Assembly, recently, urged President Muhammadu Buhari to probe the activities and financial dealings of the agency in the state in the last eight years.

The legislators were sad that despite their proud array of intellectuals and technocrats, their cerebral clout could not comprehend how billions of naira meant for road repairs in the state was not translating into painless commuting. They were even the more perplexed that the state had actually been the one maintaining federal roads. In a motion unanimously adopted by the lawmakers, the House might have insinuated that African magic had been at play, as it called on Governor Akinwunmi Ambode to demand a refund.

In public forums, others have accused the agency of snoring when defective sections of roads could have been fixed quickly and at lesser cost, and waking up only when they have become monstrous canyons requiring contracts worth billions of dollars.

But nothing can be as unfair as insinuations that the millions allocated for repairs of roads have actually been diverted or that the agency should have repaired roads when their ‘badness’ was small. It amounts to sheer ignorance of the vision and mission of the agency or a suggestion that since its creation, it has not lived up to these guiding principles: “To become the most efficient road maintenance management organisation that will enhance the economic well being of Nigerians and promote their interests locally and internationally,” and “To efficiently administer road maintenance with the objective of keeping all federal roads in good, safe and comfortable condition for the best value in road transport.”

Nigerian roads are what they truly are called: Nigerian roads. They must, therefore, be treated as such. It is a unique revelation that FERMA has known all these years and which some country folks may just also now be discovering. Take a look around and try to point at any of the thousands of roads in the country that has been kept alive by periodic and diligent maintenance before it fell apart. Simply put, the country’s roads may not yield to maintenance. It’s a mystery.

Aware of this, and rather than waste precious time, money and labour, FERMA waits until the roads become death traps, claim one and a half, or at most, two lives, and then move in with headlines screaming, ‘FERMA Begins Rehabilitation…’ and a budget as fat as it is heavy.

Nigerians, therefore, wondering why the Enugu-Port Harcourt, Abuja-Kaduna, Benin-Warri, Aba-Ikot Ekpene-Calabar, Bende-Ohafia Arochukwu roads, among others, are not being duly maintained by the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency, will have to wait until the roads have completely failed and claimed a life or more.

It is also for similar reasons that content on the agency’s website has not been updated in the last four years. According to www.ferma.gov.ng, as at Thursday, January 14, 2016, Engineer Gabriel Amuchi is the substantive Managing Director/CEO from September 12, 2011 “to date”; while a 2009 Annual Report that “mirrors the activities of the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency” is the latest available edition for download.

And the most recent entry of the agency’s activities, dated 29 March 2012, is: “Flag-off of FERMA Preventive Road Maintenance and Surveillance programme by Hon. Minister of Works, Arc. Mike Onolememen, along Owerri-Onitsha Dual Carriageway, (KM2+000) Opp. Alvana Model School.” The site’s telephone hotlines are either switched off or unavailable, and sections that promise information such as “road maintenance update across states of the federation” and “details of all ongoing projects awarded and managed by the Agency” are inaccessible.

Expectedly, the website will be not be updated any time now. It must, first, fester thoroughly in the pits of antiquity until perhaps the year 2020.

And who knows, its maintenance then may just run into many millions of naira.