•Commuters call for urgent action ahead Christmas and New Year
By Cosmas Omegoh
Christmas is weeks away. At this period of the year, the roads are unusually busy. Hundreds of thousands of commuters will be on their way home to celebrate the Yuletide with their relations.
Naturally, many will be leaving Lagos and other cities in the South West to celebrate in towns and villages in the South-East and South-South regions. People from the South-West living in the two contiguous regions too would be returning home for Christmas and New Year celebrations. So, many people would be on the Lagos-Benin Road in the approaching days.
But has anyone spared a thought for the state of the roads across the country? If truth must be told, most of the roads that many people will be plying in the coming season are in various stages of dilapidation. Ask any regular on such roads and they would attest to the fact that the facilities are in terrible condition. Some hold nothing but pain and anguish; they are in desperate need of rehabilitation.
One of such roads where suffering seems to walk on all fours, even now that the season is yet to hit a frenzied state, is the Benin Bypass in Edo State. The road has one terrible, failed portion that sticks out like a burgeoning tumour on the nation’s conscience. It is one completely run-down portion on both sides of the dual carriageway, which barely exceeds 500 metres. But it is an albatross. On a bad day, it could delay road users for an upward of three hours.
But that is not the only trouble on that the road. The other headache is the tens of articulate vehicles belonging to a popular cement company that obstruct traffic and make the road nearly impassable.
Drivers of that cement company and their colleagues appear to be mindless. They have long converted the area to their stopover and rendezvous. There, they rest for hours and days to do some repairs on their vehicles before hitting the road again. Some have for long abandoned their unserviceable vehicles there, thereby obstructing traffic and taking every inch of solid ground through which other vehicles would have manoeuvred out of the area.
The Benin Bypass was completed by the Chief Olusegun Obasanjo-led Federal Government allegedly at the cost of N10 billion. The idea was to save motorists the ordeal of passing through Benin City, which was already plagued by nerve-wracking gridlock. And the idea worked.
At its completion, motorists going to Auchi, Ekpoma, Sapele, Warri, Asaba and the East from the Lagos end had no more need to go into Benin City. They simply went through the bypass and cut down on their travel time.
Over the years, everyone has been using the Benin Bypass and enjoying it, even though commuters have had to endure the menace of armed robbers who, from time to time, target victims on the road. That didn’t seem to matter much as it appeared to be a lesser problem compared to the frequent emergence of potholes that became craters on both sides of the road. The problem has now become a handful for all to deal with.
The place is called Ahor, a shouting distance from the Auchi-Benin ring road on the Benin Bypass, home to the worst failed portions on that road. It is evidently a nightmare to everyone right now.
In the second week of October, this reporter had cause to travel to the East. It had rained a night before so everywhere was wet. On approaching Ahor, we noticed a long queue of vehicles on both sides of the supposed dual carriageway, which for long had ceased to be. There was desperation on the part of every motorist, especially drivers of cars and sprinter passenger buses to move away from the scene. Drivers of other bigger vehicles sat at the wheel, marooned, for it was not easy for them. They had all resigned to fate.
There seemed to be only a narrow space every motorist had to squeeze through to get out to the maze. This stoked more desperation that eventually brought out the worst in the drivers.
It took nearly one hour to get to the troubled spot. Some policemen were helping out to ensure that the challenge didn’t get worse.
Close to the bad spot, a big passenger bus was trapped in the mud. The passengers, especially the men, had to alight to help push the ill-fated bus out of the muck and to spare other commuters lots of trouble, since the bus was adding to everyone’s woes.
Recently, this reporter had to trave to Asaba from Lagos. The overland journey was smooth save for minor hiccups on the way. But the rhythm changed the moment we hit Ahor. Peering ahead, we noticed a traffic build-up. As usual, both sides of the road had been taken up by vehicles. One section of the dual carriageway had been completely cut off. For long, no one had been using it and it clearly showed.
What should have been the road median was filled with mud. No vehicle dared to venture near it. Everyone moved at a snail’s speed, dragging along for minutes until we arrived at a spot where smaller vehicles made a detour into the nearby village. The road was narrow and unpaved but motorable. At least it helped to ease the chaos everyone had to go through. The villagers didn’t seem to like the brutal intrusion into their peace; they showed their angst with the look in their faces.
We were lucky to hit the Auchi-Benin Road in minutes; it was a lucky escape from the avoidable cross many others were condemned to carry. Everyone heaved a big sigh of relief as the vehicle veered onto the expressway. But we still paid some debt as we had to travel as far as nearly five kilometres along the road before we could see a spot to make a U-turn as some construction work was going on on the highway.
“This is the trouble we go through every day we are on this road,” our driver said when he eventually found his voice. “This bypass was constructed to help people and save travel time, but now look at what it has finally become.”
The driver’s statement provoked instant reactions: “I thought we have a government,” a man fired. “Where is the Minister of Works, Power and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola? Where is Federal Road Maintenance Agency? Do they mean to say that they are all blind to this?”
During my return journey to Lagos, again, Ahor was a herculean task. Soon after we descended from the flyover across the Benin-Auchi Road, we noticed a build-up of traffic. For close to 30 minutes we were rooted at the same spot.
When we got to the failed portion, chaos held sway. Everyone was jostling to escape the melee. Somehow, our driver found an opening between some make-shift stalls and sheds occupied by petty traders and artisans. He manoeuvred through it; the occupants of the area were furious, cursing and swearing as the venicle sped through, but our driver was unfazed. What mattered most was to escape from the chaotic scene and he did.
“I wonder how this place would be during the Yuletide when very many people will be travelling home,” a passenger asked. Continuing, he said: “If this situation is not attended to, I wonder how things will be in the weeks ahead.”
The situation at Ahor was to dominate discussions for a long time in the course of our journey. The passengers kept wishing that government did something urgent at the spot to save many who would be passing through the area the agony they don’t deserve to experience.