DEVELOPMENT MATTERS - Who will tell this to Obaseki?

Towards the end of last month, and early this month of September, I plied the Benin-Auchi road. The first was to Abuja while the second was to the Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma. Apart from the fear which grips your heart when you suddenly find yourself head to head with an oncoming vehicle because the driver is trying to evade a dangerous pothole, there is the general sense of dismay at the imagery which this road has with our direction as a nation. Investigations reveal that this is a Federal road, and the chap at the Federal House of Representatives in whose jurisdiction this road falls has assured that the contract for the repair, rehabilitation of the road has been awarded. He said the contractors are waiting for the rains to subside to resume repairs.

And that is where the shame really starts – not the fatigue or deaths from ghastly accidents on these roads – no, not from any of these.At this point in the life of our country, nobody who values the importance of the lives of her people, and the special place that our roads have in alleviating poverty should give this kind of excuse. 

It means that our people will continue to suffer and die just because of ordinary rainfall!  In other parts of the world where government places a premium on the lives of her people, they defy/harness/subdue the elements. They spare no expense and do everything in their power to make the lives of their people meaningful. Is the extra cost of repairing a road during the rains more than the lives of those which we stand to lose by waiting until the rains are done pouring?

If you regularly ply this road, you might just notice that a very good reason for its bad state is that it sustains a vibrant inter-state commercial enterprise. The lorries bring in watermelon, fish, chicken, onions, beans, yams, cows and fruits into Benin City from the North – and return empty. Some persons told me recently that they return empty because the comparative advantage of the ‘trade’ between Edo/Delta states and the North is tilted very much in favour of the states in the North where those agricultural produce come from. What this means is that while the states in the North where those agricultural produce come from smile to the banks from selling their goods within Nigeria, our people in Edo/Delta are generally laid back, as oil producing states ‘enjoying’ oil wealth.

What to do? At the short-term, the government must fix that road, rain or no rain, and then begin to look for ways of taxing those Northern traders. Governor Obaseki might want to also visit the Edo ADP premises and the roads around there to see how beautifully abandoned the place is. The one leading to Ekenwan road from the Airport needs attention sir. In the long term, the governors of Edo and Delta states, and indeed those of the entire Niger Delta Region may want to embark on a peer review programme to the North to ascertain how the North suddenly became the food supplier of the Niger Delta and the South-South states of Nigeria.