By Job Osazuwa
Nothing best defines suffering than when plying the Sango-Ijoko route in Ifo Local Government Area (LGA) of Ogun State. Moving in and out of the area on a daily basis has become an unwarranted punishment.
To say that the residents are not happy with the state of roads is simply repeating the obvious. Their plights are being compounded by the rainy season. They are groaning and protesting that they are totally trapped due to the bad condition of the roads.
The people have cried out, once again, that many of the major roads in the area have become completely deplorable. They insist that their communities have suffered many decades of sheer abandonment by successive governments at the federal and state levels. Community leaders and other residents protested in the past, calling on the authorities to come to their aid, but their afflictions appear to have continued unabated.
They are, therefore, appealing to Governor Dapo Abiodun to quickly look into the hardship they face daily. Without exaggeration, the challenges occasioned by the deplorable condition of roads in these communities are enormous, and the hardship faced by the residents on a daily basis is pathetic. The decay stares all in the face.
The residents are lamenting that accessing areas such as Agbado, Ope-Ilu, Oluwo, Itoki, Lemode, Abule, Robiyan, Muta, Ibaragun, Orudu, OgbaIyo, Arepo, Gas Line, Lisa, Adiyan, Giwa, Oke-Aro, Matogun, Osere, Lambe, Abule-Ekun, Tipper, Oniyanrin, Akute, Ajuwon, Alagbole, Ojodu and Crossing are being done in tears. Abule-Iroko, Robiyan, Denro Ishasi, Ojodu-Abiodun and Ishaga residents are not left out in the unmitigated anguish.
According to the aggrieved residents, virtually all the major roads in the area have become death traps. Every now and then, car owners end up taking their broken down vehicles to the mechanics for repair. Precious man-hours are lost on the road, even as commuters pay through their noses to get to their workplaces.
In and out of the rainy season, it has been years of tears, sorrow and pain on the axis. Many lives have been dispatched to the world beyond owing to the gullies that have, over the years, dotted most parts of the busy road. Many residents of the area, as well as visitors, have been maimed and killed, leaving others with indelible scars.
The dilapidated roads are said to affect more than 400 communities with over a million people. At the moment, business operations have collapsed, residents are leaving their property to neighbouring state, students cannot go to schools, most markets are closed down and motorcycle riders have become kings of the road.
Everyone living in this area seems afflicted with the double trouble of the bad roads that daily have the traffic crawling at a snail’s pace, and the menace of men of the underworld that capitalize in the situation to terrorise the residents.
Government, both present and the past, is being accused of neglecting this critical infrastructure, for as far back as in the last 20 years, causing the people to bear the brunt.
When the former administration of Senator Ibikunle Amosun commenced a 32-kilometre road that would link Sango with Berger in Lagos, everyone in the communities leaped for joy. Sadly, years after the flag-off of the job, the project has been neglected, if not forgotten.
As the better part of the major road became impassable, the alternative inner streets, which are not tarred, also became messy from the impact of the number and size of vehicles plying them.
One of the leaders in Ope-Ilu, Mr Okeowo Oderinde, told Daily Sun that Gbenga Daniel and Amosun administrations made some efforts, but the projects were abandoned and the people left to their fate:
“Our people are really suffering because of the bad roads. The roads have rendered many businesses useless and destroyed many vehicles. Many tenants, including some landlords are relocating. Property owners are suffering because nobody wants to live in the area anymore. Our situation here is better experienced than imagined.
“We will continue to call on the government to assist us to fix the road, even if it is in terms of palliative, we don’t mind. It is the responsibility of the government to provide good roads for the citizens.
“But on our own, we have mobilised all the stakeholders in the area to clear the drainages. We started this last week and everyday we are on the road working. We are also making little financial contributions, but there is a limit to what we can do as individuals.
“This is a major road that has been abandoned for too long. We need urgent help from our governor because many people don’t have alternative places to go.”
The people are wondering why Abiodun has concentrated in maintenance of roads in other parts of the sate leaving their area to rot away. Many of the affected communities recently teamed up to carry out some palliatives on the major roads so that they can become motorable, while waiting for government’s intervention.
Approaching it phase by phase, the community hopes to achieve clearing the drainage from Ope-Ilu to Rafco where the water flows down to Agbado water collector. And after draining of the pool of water, then proceed to backfilling with hard core.
They are also working on areas where the gutter is blocked and finding a way for erosion passage. Filing the damaged roads with hard core from Agbado Road through to Ijoko Ogba Ayo is also a goal that the community hopes to accomplish.
A landlord at Ijoko, Mr Adebayo Olumide, said he was regretting for choosing to build a house in the area, saying that the suffering has become unbearable. He joined others to call on the governor to quickly attend to the abandoned road project. He bemoaned the serious threat it poses to the residents’ security and health.
Investigations revealed that the state of roads in these border communities has made some residents abandon their properties to seek refuge in nearby Lagos towns, while some families have devised a way of returning home only at the weekend.
The majority of the residents enduring this hardship daily pay a fortune for transportation to and fro. They lamented that transportation cost increases beyond measure, even when it is not certain that residents would get to their destinations due to frequent vehicle breakdown caused by flood on the roads.
Another worried landlord, a grand patron in one of the community development committees (CDCs) in the affected area, Prince Funso Adewodun, who lives at Sharp Corner/Itoki area, said:
“We are living here as if we don’t have a government. Our roads are in a pathetic situation. The potholes are eyesores. Things must not continue like this.
“We are appealing to the government to help us. We pay our taxes and levies. During elections, we come out en masse to vote but, in return, we are left with nothing, except suffering.”
Daily Sun was told that the present governor was at the community before the election and he was said to have had an agreement with the residents to fix the road as soon as he was elected. They have been waiting endlessly for the promise to be fulfilled.