The Concourse
By Soney Antai
Serial awards-winning columnist
The Concourse
Where checkpoints and potholes compete for space
What the road lacks in sophistication (smoothness, width, signs, gutters), it makes up for it in high traffic; what its termini lack in modernity, they make up for it in popularity. Why? At those ends are fish and crayfish markets known internationally, and presses repair there to buy them. What’s more, though it has only one bridge, whose health status some folks would swear is less than healthy, it makes up for it in potholes, some of which if given enough time to continue growing, might mature enough to need bridges. I’m afraid that sounds kinky to you. Well, you don’t need that grimmace to betray your doubting the point. Yeah, welcome to the story of the road running between Oron Town and Ibaka in Mbo Local Government Area.
When it was newly built in the 1980s, you needed fewer than 30 minutes to traverse it, if your means of mobility was not a jalopy. The reason was obvious; it still is.
But things are no more the same, the mortar and caulk can no longer cohabit with the raw earth, and the result? Buddies which, gluing together yesterday were stronger, are now divorced and have become weaker. They have gone their separate ways, having been put asunder by years of poor maintenance habitude by an uncaring system long in rhetoric but short in practicality.
Well, let’s do the numbers. If you count fewer than 15 healthy potholes between Eyo Abasi (pronounce, Eyo-Aazi) and Oduo Ebughu, you must have missed the count. But then, if you ‘redesign’ some of the failed portions on the road to fit exactness, you would count fewer number since a few of them qualify as ‘basinholes.’ Obviously! On the flipside, within that stretch, you notice at least five checkpoints manned by busy men with arms and wearing security uniforms. Yet , that is a distance of only about 25 kilometres. You don’t see such concentration of checkpoints anywhere in the north of your country, except around where our Saudi trainees are seriously stirring dawah of jihadism. What are those friends of ours (remember the slogan of their being our friends?) checking at those points, when they at times check without pointing and point without checking? Our guesses are as good as one another’s.
Would one that the very thing that attracts these stakeholders (potholes and checkpoints) to this aging, receding, orphaned, and teary-faced road, would also attract development. But beyond this road are other equally failing roads. I dare repeat: our roads are generally bad. Uyo metropolis is not even spared. In its recent Special Report, WatchmanPost drew public attention to this. Given the gravity and pristine democratic credentials of the road conditions, one wonders where the Akwa Ibom State Road Maintenance Agency is now. Something should be done urgently to rectify the situation. You see, as the receding clan of fiery hardnosed Christian evangelists used to warn unbelievers like the guy walking down that road, hands clasped with that gal he is not married to, I daresay of the urgency of fixing our failing roads, “delay is dangerous!”
Peace in Gaza?
American President Donald Trump has pulled a monumental deal leading to the release of 20 living hostages from Islamic Resistance (Hamas) terrorism tunnels and the freeing of almost 2000 Palestinians, some of them terrorism convicts held in Israeli jails.
For many, this is a fresh breeze blowing across the Middle East. Of course, why not? Trump had declared at the Israeli Knesset (Parliament), “You won. The war is over.” Egypt, double-faced Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, among other Muslim countries signed up for peace. But will there be peace between Israel and Hamas? I doubt. Yes, seriously! Both lay claim to the same piece of estate claiming ownership by divine inheritance.
Israel moved out of Gaza in 2005 and the Palestinian Authority took charge of the territory. In 2007, Hamas took over the place, leaving the Palestinian Authority helpless. International aids to develop the place poured in from around the world. However, Hamas, rather than deploy the funds in helping their people, diverted them into building a network of underground tunnels cast in concrete running into, some authorities say, up to 500 kilometers and 30 to 70 feet deep, to store military hardware and munitions, as well as detain Israeli hostages away from the eyes of the public. They have vowed to obliterate Israel. Israel has also vowed that will never happen. This is the reality; every other thing is diplomacy and propaganda. Peace is yet afar!