Dear Honourable Minister of Roads,
I hope you haven’t had cause to travel on any of Nigeria’s bad roads lately. Such experiences are the daily routines of millions of ordinary citizens like me. Please, pardon my addressing you as minister of roads. I have done this to reflect the focus and intensity of my letter.
I recently had the nightmare experience of travelling on some of the roads over which you’ve been appointed custodian. Before I tell you which roads and what I encountered, let me tell you why I was on them in the first place. I had to attend the funeral ceremonies of a great Nigerian which took place in Ibadan and Ondo. This compelled me to engage in the perilous endeavour of travelling on your roads. I travelled north to Ibadan, south-east from there to Ondo and finally back to Lagos, further south from Ondo - a total distance of about 660 kilometres.
This letter captures the pains of my journey for you to read and perhaps feel. In adding the word “feel”, I’m making a rather unsafe assumption that you haven’t gone past feeling. GPFS, you might want to know is a rampant disease among those who lead government in Nigeria and many similar nations. So that I don’t leave you wondering, GPFS stands for Gone Past Feeling Syndrome, a severe mental disease.
Its symptoms include sadistic, bestial and psychopathic thoughts combined with compulsive material acquisition, kleptomania and loss of feeling for fellow human beings. It effects are manifest in the way selected (not elected) public officers run government but this isn’t a letter about diseases. Besides, I’m not a medical expert and GPFS is still being researched only in the private university of my mind.
Let me start with some simple calculations. The distance of about 660 kilometres at the rate of 1 hour for every 100 kilometres should ordinarily take about six to seven hours. During this trip, it took close to ten hours. We didn’t stop at any point except for less than five minutes during phase two of the journey and I’ll come to that shortly. We didn’t have any problems with the engine or tyres. I can offer only one explanation for the variance in travelling time – the bad roads which you’re minister of. I don’t have the power to alter the name of your ministry to Ministry of Bad Roads but if I did, as it stands today, that name would be apt.
Now, follow the journey through my description. In the first phase, I travelled from Lagos to Ibadan (147 kilometres) on the dual dirt and pothole road you’ve wrongly labelled “federal expressway”. I’ll soon narrate the tourist detractions I encountered but I wonder whether you’ve ever travelled on this road. If you have, I really would like to know what your experience was.
Of course, if you’ve ever travelled on this road, you’d have been urged on in your 4 by 4 with loud sirens and lunatic escort drivers chasing poor citizens into the bush.
Anyway, what am I asking? You’re not likely to travel such a road because your security reports would have told you it is too dangerous for a Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. After all, Nigeria is a great nation with good people and particularly good ministers like your great self. They would have told you of the great trucks and tankers which will park in the middle, left and right of the road oblivious of your great presence.
It’ll be bad enough if you’re journeying on this road during the day. Worse, would be to drive at night in the taxpayers’ jeep without streetlights to aid your visibility. This will make you unable to see the potholes and undulations which have overwhelmed your expressway – sorry, I meant to say your hollow way. Let me respectfully remind you that the potholes lead to hundreds of sudden and fatal accidents every year.
By the way, are you aware that a driver to Mr. Hedof-Reps died along the Lagos-Ibadan hollow way? No, I don’t suppose you’d be aware. I don’t know the exact circumstances but I gather the car skidded off the road to put an end to another “worthless’ Nigerian life. I use the word “worthless” because of the value that Nigerian leaders seem to place on the lives of citizens. You’ll probably say, “What does it matter? He’s just a bloody driver”. Please, pass my condolence to Mr. Hedof-Reps when you see him in Abuja. In any case, he shares Abuja’s luxury with you and has never complained about the roads on behalf of those he represents. Moreover, this letter isn’t addressed to him.
Another thought crossed my mind during the journey to Ibadan. It’s actually a question: Do you ever think of what Nigerian drivers and passengers encounter on the wretched roads you oversee? Again, it’s a silly question, isn’t it?
I’ll continue the letter next week...