Does Obasanjo use Nigerian roads

Does Obasanjo use Nigerian roads?

It is a rhetorical question to ask whether President Olusegun Obasanjo uses highways in Nigeria. Even though he is the country's most travelled head of state with his presidential jet touching down and taking off for international flights every other day, President Obasanjo has been on some state visits since 1999. On such domestic trips, there are flight limitations and he would have travelled by road. But I am not sure whether he sees what the rest of us find on our highways, because the windows of his imported limousines are tinted and there is therefore a distortion of the harsh reality that the rest of us see.

Last weekend, I travelled on the Shagamu-Benin so-called expressway. The highway has no hard shoulder; grass more than 12 feet tall obscure visibility; there are no markings on the road, which makes driving even more hazardous at night; road signs are unavailable. But more frightening were the ghastly scenes of accidents. I just lost count, but a few I could remember. Shortly after Ijebu-Ode, a state government vehicle and a red Volvo had a head-on collision and so irresponsible was the traffic officer who had come to incident the accident that he was raving that if the motorists could not control themselves at the spot which had reduced the so-called expressway into a space not wider than half a lane, let them sleep there.

Elsewhere on the route, several trucks were lying belly up after crashing into the bush. At Ore, a fully loaded truck smashed into some makeshift shops. Carcasses of burnt-out cars and buses and trucks littered the roadside. I had not travelled on that route for some months and I do not see how any foreigner who is used to better roads in his country would not be more frightened than myself. Yet, there is the perennial noise about attracting foreigners to this country. How can they come when our roads are death traps: ill-maintained and ill-policed? When next you are on the inter-state highway, look out the window and see how many persons of a different skin colour are also cruising. Your observation will tell you how much of hot air we are making about tourism and foreign investors.

It is interesting that the Information Minister, Prof. Jerry Gana, is currently shepherding a group of journalists round the country to showcase the government's version of the dividends of democracy. No responsible journalist worth his calling will behold the patent and clear danger that our highways represent and not feel that the dividends are not yet on the road. It is true that several new projects, such as the Benin bye-pass, are being executed, but that is the typical cycle of governance that has left the country in its present appalling state. The Obasanjo government has been an unmitigated failure in raising the abysmal level of a maintenance culture. They say they have been rehabilitating roads, yet so bumpy are the highways, that driving is definitely not a pleasure. It is sufficient for you to get to your destination and give thanks to God. It is doubtful whether the kind of useless roads we call inter-state highways here are in war-ravaged Sierra Leone. The Obasanjo Administration will have immense difficulty in honestly claiming that it is a responsive government. Neither energy nor security can it reasonably provide. On the highways, people are dying like flies and yet the government does not see an emergency at hand.

To illustrate the rising dangers on the road, I will take a few newspaper stories published in recent weeks. THE GUARDIAN, May 28 : 12 burnt to death in auto crash. The story reads: "No fewer than 12 persons were burnt to death in a ghastly motor accident (on) the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, just as another accident that would have claimed the lives of the entire passengers in a Mercedes Benz 1414 commuter bus was averted on the expressway at the weekend. The first auto crash which occurred last Friday about 10 km before the Ogere toll gate involved an Urvan bus and a petrol tanker." THE PUNCH, May 16: 19 killed in auto crash. "Nineteen lives were lost on Tuesday in a multiple accident involving a truck and two other buses on the Jos-Kaduna road." THISDAY, May 4 : Union scribe, two daughters perish in May Day crash. "Tragedy hit the Labour camp in Plateau State on May Day when the official car of the state Secretary of the Nigerian Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), Comrade Yusuf Abdulkadir, had a head-on collision with another car, killing on the spot the scribe, his two daughters and his driver, Simon Rashak."

THE PUNCH, May 7 Gbonigi's book launch : Don, four others die in auto crash. "Tragedy befell the nation's academic sector last Thursday evening when a retired university don, Prof. Omolade Adejuyigbe, and four other persons were killed in an auto crash while returning to Akure from Ibadan, where they had gone to attend the book launch of (the) Rev. Bolanle Gbonigi." NIGERIAN TRIBUNE, April 23 : Tragedy hits Head of Service-loses two kids. "Tragedy struck on Sunday in Bauchi when two daughters of the Head of the Federal Civil Service, Alhaji Yayale Ahmed, were killed in a ghastly road crash along Bauchi-Jos road on their way to Abuja." THISDAY, May 2: 13 killed in auto crash. "No fewer than 13 persons were killed just as four others sustained injuries in a ghastly motor accident along Sugu-Ganye bridge in Ganye local government area of Adamawa State." THE VANGUARD, May 30: Auto crash claims 16 on Lagos/Akure Road. "At least 16 persons were killed in an auto crash involving three vehicles along the Lagos Akure expressway on Monday as the nation celebrated the second year of democracy."

Move over to June 2001 and the headlines are as scary as they are unrelenting. DAILY CHAMPION, June 18: 19 more killed in Abuja death trap. "Residents of Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) woke up yesterday morning to the news of another fatal accident at the notorious Nyanya junction, on the Abuja-Keffi road in which at least 19 persons were burnt to death. About 120 persons have died in the last 13 months in over four major automobile accidents at the same spot." THISDAY, June 16 : Four killed in midday accident. "No fewer than four persons were reported dead and three others in very critical condition following their involvement in a ghastly motor accident in Owerri, Imo State." THE GUARDIAN, June 26: 18 persons burnt to death in auto crash. "Eighteen persons...(among them four babies) were burnt beyond recognition when the commuter bus in which they were travelling had a head-on collision with a cargo trailer on the Ibadan-Ilorin road." On June 23, THE VANGUARD had three stories, all on road accidents. In one, 18 persons died on the Ondo-Ore-Lagos road. In the other, six persons were killed near Okpanam junction in Delta State, while in the third story a family of six were killed at Owode-Egba in Ogun State after their car collided with another car.

According to the Federal Road Safety Corps, at least 580 persons died in road accidents in various parts of the country in January this year. Between May and September last year, no fewer than 2,490 lives were also lost in several road crashes. Among the victims have been the prominent and the unsung. Senator Adamu Augie died in an auto crash. North, South, East and West, the scourge of accidents is ever present. It is distressing that neither the Executive nor the Legislature has seen in this a crisis situation demanding urgent and earnest attention. They forget that there is a limit to which their sirens and convoy can protect them. If they were genuine and selfless politicians they would be concerned that their constituents are dying on the road everyday. If they were not eyeing rigging, they would know that among the dying are potential voters. From top to bottom, from the federal to state and local governments, the lack of attention to road carnage bears a sad testimony to their irresponsibility.

October 2001