The Concourse
By Soney Antai, serial awards-winning columnist
Road to some-no-where
A key infrastructural landmark of hamlets, towns, cities and countries is the thoroughfare network they boast of. It goes without saying that roads (including streets, lanes and avenues) are key drivers of commerce and social interaction among people and communities. They define cities and towns and connect businesses to homes, people to opportunities, and goods to markets.
Good roads allow for easy, fast and smooth movement of people and goods. They also help, in a way, to keep criminal activities low on highways. Kidnappers, robbers and petty thieves commonly strike around failed road portions where vehicles are compelled to slow down. Roads also help patients in emergency situations to be rushed to health facilities for medical attention. Transporters tend to charge lower fares for goods ferried on good roads than for those conveyed on bad ones.
Against this background, governments, especially in Third World countries, regard road construction as a major achievement. They boast about it and, often by deliberate exaggeration, make outlandish claims about the number of roads they have built, framing it as if they did so from their personal resources, if indeed they did. They do not always disclose the political and personal capital they make from such initiatives, but that is a story for another day.
No administration in Akwa Ibom State would fail to be credited, to a good degree, with some road-building attainments. In fact, by Nigeria’s standard, the state has a relatively better road network than many others. The reason could be the healthy volume of revenue it has had since 2008, or the vision of the governors behind the state’s vehicle of development.
While the state’s road development, especially in Uyo, the seat of government, and the “urban” local government areas, is commendable (though much still has to be done), many inter-local government area roads are in terrible shape. This year, the situation has been worsened by the unending rains.
One such road is the one between the nine villages of Udesi in Mbo and Oruko in Urue Offong Oruko. It is a road to nowhere, from the ageless Oruko Market down to where, from the Oruko flank, the two frontline Udesi villages of Akai Attih and Osu begin. The road is so bad that, as a typical Oro elder would say, it is like odighi uduñ ekpu (the road leading to the homeland of the dead).
What complicates matters is that the villages are cut off from their local government area headquarters, Enwang, and the commercial nerve centre of the area, Ibaka. To reach these two critical locations by any motorised means, people must be ready to dance, bump, twist and turn as they rock along at snail speed. The better alternative is the Oron Town-Ebughu Road, but that means losing valuable time and money.
It is sad that a road that could boost the economy of the people and that of their neighbours has become such a bugbear to travel on. In the 1960s and 1970s, this was not the case; vehicles plied that route freely. It is worrying that at a time other areas are receiving government attention, a major artery leading to markets and to primary and secondary schools is becoming narrower and more decrepit by the day, and it looks as if nobody of political consequence is bothered.
The condition of the road, which has lasted decades, indicates that all the advantages of good roads listed above are absent. That is sad for a community with representatives in government, whose citizens pay taxes and vote for political gladiators. And before anyone argues that a “contract” has been awarded for the construction of the road, it should be stated clearly that the people I have interacted with have provided no evidence to that effect. In any case, our people are tired of hearing tales of hope. A former governor of the state during his campaign for second term stood in husting in Enwang promised to reconstruct the broken bridge on that road even beforehe would resume office; he did nothing thereafter.
We want to see that road constructed with gutters to give it longevity. This is not asking too much. I recall that about three years ago, I on separate occasions drew the attention of two politicians from Mbo to the deplorable condition of the road, and they assured me that it was listed among the priority roads to be constructed in the area by this government. If they are reading this, they should do the needful.
We need the Oruko-Udesi-Ebughu artery to be a road to somewhere and not one to some-no-where that it currently is. As our elders would say in such a frustrating situation, enyi su enwi Udesi elei o (Udesi people have not been found guilty of any crime) to deserve this kind of ill-treatment for decades■