By Francis Ewherido
In June 1990, the then military government awarded the contract for the dualisation of the Benin to Effurun road to Daewoo E and C Nigeria Limited. The 149.1 kilometer road was completed in December 1992. It was one of the best roads in Nigeria then. The road was so good that a journey from Effurun/Warri to Benin took between an hour and 75 minutes. This honeymoon continued for a long while, then the road started deteriorating gradually. That affliction called “poor maintenance culture” visited it. Now travelling through that road has become a nightmare.
One very prominent man who has not travelled by road from Lagos to Delta for decades (he always flew straight to Effurun airstrip and later Osubi Airport) was forced to use the road recently. He had an important engagement in Delta State, but he could not get a direct flight to Osubi. He travelled by air from Lagos to Benin. He spent four hours on the road from Benin to Ughelli South LGA. When he called me to narrate his ordeal, he said he was in severe pains all over his body. I couldn’t help but laugh aloud while sympathizing with him. Later I travelled to Delta. I love travelling from Lagos to Delta State by road due to some reasons. A few months ago when I went to Delta State, the bad spots on the road were tolerable. My recent trip was nightmarish.
In the 90s, I drove from Lagos to Effurun in four hours, 10 minutes. I was a speed master. Shortly after, I had my first daughter, I realized that I was now a father and needed to slow down. My journey time increased to between five hours and five hours, thirty minutes. But this last trip took 10 hours from Lagos to Delta. Edo State alone accounted for five hours. Four of the five hours were spent immediately we descended from the by-pass down to Ologbo. It just didn’t not make sense. During former Governor Godwin Obaseki’s time, he placed signs on the filthy median in the dual carriageway reminding road users that the road belongs to the federal government. I thought with Sen. Monday Okpebholo, an All Progressive Congress man becoming a governor, remedial measures will be made, but none so far.
The road, I learnt, is among those being reconstructed by the federal government. I thought the contractor would have started with the bad portions. The governor needs to the engage the contractor to trash that out or the Edo State Government should make the bad portions of the road motorable. It is very embarrassing that such a major road will become so bad inside the state capital. It does not matter who owns the road. I remember during Oshiomole’s time as Edo State Governor, he took the bull by the horns and reconstructed the bad stretch of the Benin-Lagos Expressway in Edo State. He was an AC later APC governor while former President Goodluck Jonathan was PDP. It’s about the people, not the party you belong to.
The portion of the road Oshiomole constructed used to be one of the best portions of the Lagos-Benin Expressway, but right now, it is deteriorating. It is crying for rehabilitation. But it is not comparable to the Benin Bypass in terms of deterioration. It was a horrible experience when I passed through there a few months ago. The last time, I was told it’s very bad. We drove into Benin and passed through New Benin Road to Ramat Park as if we were going to Agbor before joining the bypass going to Effurun thereby cutting off the bad portions of the bypass.
The story of the bypass is ironic. When the plan was unveiled, some Binis were against it. They felt diverting traffic from inside Benin City will have negative economic impact on the city. Ethnic meanings were read into it since the then Minister of Works, the late Chief Tony Anenih, was from Uromi of Esan stock. But rather than be a curse, the bypass is actually a blessing, leading to an explosion of development in that part of Benin. The only minus is the current poor state of the bypass.
Travelling from Lagos to Delta State by road is a paradox. In the 90s, you had to leave Lagos early so that you did not get trapped in Lagos traffic. Some portions of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway were also bad, so leaving early meant less traffic and avoiding being stuck before you turned off to Sagamu in Ogun State. Once we entered Sagamu, it was a smooth ride. The Ogun portion had the smoothest portion from Ogun State to Edo State. Today, the reverse is the case. The Ogun State portion is “shaky-shaky.” It is very rough and bumpy. I advise pregnant women and people who are ill to be careful when plying that portion of the road. It can unsettle pregnant women and aggravate the illness of sick people.
In the 90s once you left the smooth Ogun State portion and got into Ondo State, the state of the road told you. You didn’t need the sign at the boundary to know that you are now in Ondo State. I used to ask what crime Ondo State committed to warrant the neglect of their portion of the road. Then everything changed. The federal government fixed the Ondo portion of the road. It is currently the best portion from Ogun State to Edo State, but the signs of wear and tear are beginning to show.
One of the things that irritated me on the Ondo portion are the endless number of police checkpoints and the damage the blockage is doing on those portions. It is not only Ondo. The worst portions of the road in the entire stretch are places where you have police, military and customs checkpoints. They use woods and other objects to narrow the road, slow down traffic and cause damage to roads that were constructed with loans and taxpayers’ money. It is such an irony. Can’t they do their work without destroying critical infrastructure? We operate like we are in a stone age. CCTV cameras and other modern gadgets can make these checkpoints unnecessary, but it won’t happen because of entrenched interests. I hope that the concessionaires of the roads being concessioned will introduce modern technology and make these roads user-friendly. Abroad, law enforcement agents do not block the road. They park their vehicles in strategic places. They are not in-your-face, but you dare not mess up. We need to make progress in this area.
Talking about concessionaires, left with me all the highways should be concessioned. I would rather pay toll and drive on smooth roads than go through the nightmare some of our highways have become. The Minister of Works, Sen. David Umahi, is one of my favourite ministers. He knows his onions. It is just that like many Nigerians, I am impatient. I want good roads. I know he met the roads in a bad state, but he needs to perform his magic. David needs to kill Goliath. Driving on some of these roads are a crime to humanity.
