-Chris O Maduka
After spending nearly six hours for a journey that supposed to take maximum of 1 hr 45mins on federal roads in the South East, it becomes very aggravating to just sit down and watch this AGENCY that may turn out the way others like NDDC and EFCC turned out especially when you come to their discriminatory attitude in the SouthEast and South South regions, to see them make a fool of themselves on television, with the slogan FERMA CARES.
No they don’t! Federal ministry of works under the current dispensation don’t give a damn about the regions either.
Babatunde Raji Fashola the former Governor of Lagos state who once deported the people of the old Eastern region and dumped them at the head bridge Onitsha has never hidden his disdain and loathe for this region.
It seems that he carried over the same hate into the federal ministry that supposed to ensure that the economic viable federal roads are maintained and they remain memorable. Atleast that’s the mantra of FERMA on the television.
But the Minister for Works brazen discriminatory attitude has
fully manifested in the current federal ministry of works he’s heading.
Yes! let him prove me wrong and we shall go practical to take inventory of how many roads FERMA has maintained and how many new roads that have been awarded and completed in his region and that of his Northern collaborators compared to the Ones in the Old Eastern Nigeria.
It is now obvious that nearly all the federal roads in the old Eastern Nigeria including parts of the present day South South that connect all the major cities and states are at their worst state since the end of the civil war. Under his leadership at the Federal ministry of works the Old Eastern Nigeria is shutting down. The limited vehicular movement is made possible by navigating few well built roads by some of the past Governors of the states. Even those ones are getting overwhelmed by Dangote trucks and others.
We all are aware of the economic and social implications of such shutdown.
HEAR IT AGAIN, THE REGION IS ALMOST SHUTTING DOWN!!!
Meanwhile he’s often on television lying to himself. From the Onitisha head bridge gateway, you cannot travel on straight to Enugu, it is impossible. You cannot travel from Same Onitsha head bridge axis down to Owerri and to PortHarcourt, you will sleep on the road between Ihialla and Mgbidi. You cannot travel from Enugu to Umuahia, Aba and down to PortHarcourt in Rivers state.
Ironically they have contractors that have been on that road for the longest doing indiscriminate and half hazard jobs. How many years did it take to complete that dual carriage Expressway by the past serious government? This is also where so many may never forgive Pres. Jonathan and his co-travelers. They sat over some of these roads during their tenure as well. But it is worst than ever. The current crop of the Governors seem so distracted it is simply shameful.
You cannot travel from Abia to Akwa Ibom. From Akwa Ibom to Cross River is nearing total cutoff. These roads are Dangote trucks only. Those trucks still manage to meander through those dilapidated roads trying to deliver cement in the innermost tight corners of the region, Messing up what could’ve been otherwise manageable terrain.
Someone need to remind those rating Dangote the richest man that he’s indeed the poorest man as he’s morally bankrupt in so many ways. His business interest has wrecked havoc on the Nigerian environment and without him being held liable or accountable for anything. The region ought ban his trucks until he do in the region what he has been doing in other regions he has intervened.
In the SouthEast, some of the federal high ways have been transformed into soccer pitch and cassava farm. Vehicles have since stopped plying those roads. It gives an indication of a dead country. A receding and regressing society. Meanwhile network of highways are being built in Abuja and other desolate areas. I ask; what value does Abuja add to this economy… Zero .. nada!
Think about this; the shortest distance between Abia, CrossRiver, and AkwaIbom states to the Onitsha head bridge and then on to Western Nigeria is the federal highway that passed from the Enugu/PortHarcourt Express way by Okigwe junction passing through Arondizuogu, Akokwa, Uga, all the way the Onitsha/Owerri Express by Oba junction. The old luxury buses from the Aba-Lagos Promoter bus company from Aba, to Chidiebere Transport from Umuahia, Inyang Ette and Utuks Motors from Cross River and AkwaIbom, and Osondu from Okigwe, these buses used to ply this federal highway more than 20- 25 years ago. But that same federal highway is practically shut down and some parts of it turned to soccer pitch. Yet nearly every four years some rogue contractor will come there and will be received with pump and pageantry by the dying communities that actually believed that help has finally come, not knowing that is yet again another pretentious palliative to siphone funds to fund campaign or simply to share. Due to the complete shut down of the federal roads banditry and criminal activities is simply the law that rule the areas.
Not even in Mogadishu and Kismayu in the old war ravaged Somalia was it this bad. In fact, I need to truly confirm if it was this bad at the end of the civil war. But this is peace time and under the people that boasted of change, yet they failed the litmus test of basic service delivery to the people.
Yet, Fashola is paying millions to television networks to come out to blow smoke in our faces regularly.
Obviously Fashola may not have the proper balanced physical geography map of Nigeria. If he does, he would’ve realized that showcasing maintenance of third Mainaland bridge and roads in one section of his country does not reflect nothing but same endemic nepotism and discriminatory attitude that has effectively chained and crippled this country.
Talk to him now about this, he’ll sit there and try to rationalize what we all see and live with everyday as not being real. He will give some kind of bullcrap excuses and promise that something is in the Pipeline… don’t believe him.
It is almost like a conspiracy and a script against the region. Same thing seem to be the case with even some worldbank road projects in the South East awarded to mostly people from the SouthWest. They are already abandoned or sold them to some local quack contractors and retreated back to Abuja and Lagos. (story for Another so stay tuned).
The most annoying aspect of this is that some of these federal roads have been consigned or designated as some kind of orphan roads parked like old vehicle to be salvaged of
its parts when needed.These SouthEast federal highways have become a conduit for siphoning funds.
It seems this is done through what they call PALLIATIVE AND EMERGENCY INTERVENTION. Through NDDC or FERMA.
Meaning that this falls within the budgetary and funding discretion of the Minister and others without being captured in the annual budget and without necessarily being subjected to FEC approval.
This is what the OKigwe Arondizuogu, Akokwa, Uga federal expressway has become. I challenge any one to open up investigation of the shenanigans that have been going on with the road and people will spit on some faces.
It is a sad sad story.