Tony Osauzo and Ighomuaye Lucky, Benin

In the last four years, the Federal Government has advertised its performance so much in the area of provision of infrastructure, especially road construction and rehabilitation across the country. Yet, the condition of roads remains terrible in many parts of the country with attendant accidents, damages to vehicles, rise in transport fares and lost of man-hours arising from delay journeys.

Motorists and commuters travelling from Benin, Edo State, to other parts of the country have been having nightmares for sometime now. Many sections of the Benin-Auchi-Lokoja-Abuja Road have turned deep gullies, especially before Ehor, between Ekpoma and Ewu and the Okpella axis of the road.

The same goes for the Benin-Warri Road, a journey of less than one hour, which travellers have had to spend between three to‎ eight hours to get to their destinations. Several portions of the road have failed completely requiring urgent attention.  The Benin-Agbor-Asaba Road is also in terrible condition.

Road users are angry with the Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, who claimed that the complaints over bad roads are over exaggerated.

A truck driver, Danjuma Abubakar, told Daily Sun that the Benin-Auchi-Lokoja Road has become a nightmare, as they have to spend days on the road between Ehor and Ekpoma: “We only know when we start our journey but we don’t know when we would reach our destinations.

“As you can see only trucks are on this road because small vehicles can’t pass through any more because of the deep gullies. When a vehicle breaks down or falls as a result of the bad road, they can spend days waiting for the obstruction to be cleared.”

Clifford Oyibo: “I am a driver, I want to use this opportunity to appeal to our government to fix the roads. Formerly, driving through the road to Warri usually took one between 30 minutes and one hour, now it is six hours. We are suffering a lot. Look at our tyres, springs getting spoilt everyday.

“The passengers are complaining. Before now, passengers were paying N500 to N600 as transport fare. But this time around, it is N1,000 because of the bad  roads. From Benin to Port Harcourt was N2,500 before but now it is N3,500 because the journey of three hours has turned six to nine hours because the road is bad.”

Mr. Okhide Em’ya David, a journalist: “As a journalist I am on the road always. Ekpoma seems to be one of the hubs for news as university village, headquarters to a local government and a semi-business transit centre connecting so many communities.

“Now, one is taking aback for a minister, somebody occupying public office to distance himself from such appalling plight of the public, to proclaim that the worsening state, disrepair of federal roads in Nigeria is over-exaggerated, it is a sacrilege, it is unacceptable.

“It means the leader has cut himself off from the electorate. I will not blame them they fly. From Benin to Ekpoma, government officials fly now. Private choppers, commercial, they fly. They do not experience what we experience on the roads.

“I saw one or two of the interviews where he said he has taken pains to drive on the roads across Nigeria to feel the pulse. What pulse? If you drove round the roads in Nigeria, you can claim before foreign media to say it is over-exaggerated.

“The roads are bad and it aid insecurity. Bandits stay at the bad spots of the roads to rob, intimidate, to maim and kidnap road users. It has never been so bad.

“FERMA is as docile as it has ever been. They are sleeping. What they do is palliative even the palliative has gone into non-existent. It is a pity.

“People expected Fashola to have approached the Presidency with the plight of Nigerians. He is the head of the Ministry of Works. He ought to have met with the Presidency to figure out ways to fix the roads up in this dry season.

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“f the principal that is to tackle the roads is saying there is no problem, what do you expect? The Presidency has other pressing needs to attend to. Nigerians just need to brace up to experience bad roads until their tenure is over.

“The way forward is that the minister should be sacked or he should resign voluntarily. In civilized countries where democracy works if I were him I will resign. He should resign because he is not at home with his mandate to the people even to the office he occupies.

“Did President Muhammadu Buhari say that he did not understand what good roads will do to the economy? I will not blame Fashola, he is a lawyer, he should go to the judiciary.”

‎Blessed Joshua, a passenger, complained that the road leading to Warri “is really bad compared to when I was in the university because I travelled from Benin to Warri where I served. Lately, it is really bad because from Benin to Port Harcourt is supposed to be like four hours journey but now it can take you up to six or seven hours.

“I think Fashola should do something positive about it and not just coming up to say the roads are not that bad compared to how they are being painted to be. When you are flying or using a private jet, you will not know what those plying the roads are facing. The conditions of the roads are appalling.

“When I was serving in Warri, I think it was N700 when you are using Audi but using Sienna was N500. But now I think it has gone up to like N1,200 I am not too sure but I am sure that the price has gone higher than it was before.”

Another passenger, Godfrey Anuku, said: “I begin to wonder if we have a government. The reason for governance should be for the betterment of the people. The citizens have no reasons to suffer at all considering how endowed the country is. Could you imagine coming from Warri to Benin some times it takes 10 hours? In fact, it is a shame.

“They said Nigeria is the giant of Africa. It is really a shame. What is leadership all about? Is it not for the wellbeing of the people? The leaders of this country do not have the interest of the people at heart. In fact, we should be ashamed of ourselves for calling ourselves the giant of Africa.

“This is the major reason some of us are leaving the country to seek for greener pastures abroad. We are calling on the government to come to the assistance of the people. The social contract they entered with the citizens should be honoured.

“I spent about eight hours before I could get to Benin from Warri. I left Warri 5am‎ and I am just arriving Benin now. And if not that our driver paid some money to some boys on the way, we would have still been on the road by now.‎

“I have also been on Auchi Road. It is like good riddance to bad omen. I am short of words to express how I feel about the Auchi Road. The government should go to these roads and see things for themselves instead of sitting in their various offices.”

For Mr. Maleke Emmanuel, driver,‎ there is nothing that the common man enjoys today as everything is dedicated to the rich: “Then, if you talk about the roads, there are no roads in Nigeria.‎ The one that concerns me is the Auchi Road because that is the one I ply everyday. The road is one-way and it is bad. It is riddled with potholes, accidents here and there.‎

“Going to Auchi before, you could use one hour 30 minutes to get there. But now, you use four hours because of the bad road. Sometimes it will take six hours if there is any hold-up in any of the bad spots.

“The solution lies in the hands of the government because there is nothing the common man can do. If they want to repair they should repair and if they do not want to repair, they should leave it. We will all suffer it. It is not a one-man show. I know they use the airplane but their families are not. So we will all suffer it.”

Gideon Eboigbe, another driver, said:‎ “When this government came into power, they promised us change but now, everybody is suffering. Usually, I drive from Warri to Benin within the spate of 30 minutes but when the road became very bad, at times we spend three to four hours.”