How uncaring our government can be!
The past few weeks have been a hell of journey for Lagos-bound motorists on the Ibadan highway. A journey of less than 10 minutes from PUNCH newspapers area down to Berger through the long bridge now takes between three to four hours due to the slow-paced reconstruction works going on.
A reasonable government with compassion for its citizens would have fixed alternative routes such as Sagamu-Ogijo to Ikorodu and Ijebu Ode-Itokin-Ikorodu roads.
It’s a daily torture for those who live around that corridor from Ofada, Riye, Redeemed Camp, Ibafo, Mowe, Magboro etc who have to ply the routes to their work places in Lagos – Mainland and Island. It’s also a nightmare for travellers like me who have to travel from other South West, South Eastern and Northern states into Lagos regularly.
I have suffered terribly thrice trudging behind the wheel in heavy traffic back to Lagos on that long bridge to the extent that it impaired my health. The common sights are overheated cars packed haphazardly along the way causing more traffic hold-ups.
Trying alternative routes from Ijebu-Ode to Ikorodu or from Sagamu through Ogijo down to Ikorodu was also hellish due to the poor road condition that government and its business-partner contractors – Julius Berger – could have come together to make motorable with some temporary palliatives.
This is wickedly on the sides of Lagos and Ogun State governments whose citizens are most affected. To say that the Federal Government has failed Nigerians will be over flogging the issue. A lot of people in the South have lost hope in the Federal Government under this present leadership. Worse to note is the fact that the government and her contractor have been on this less than 300-kilometre Lagos-Ibadan federal highway road project since 2011. It’s also unfortunate that our own Mr Raji Fashola is in charge but has failed to take charge of any major road projects in the South West unlike what’s going on in other region especially where his principal hail from.
Lagos -Abeokuta federal highway is a disaster, Sagamu-Ijebu-Ode-Benin federal highway is in state of disrepair presently. After almost eight years in the saddle as Minister of Works, I wonder what Mr Minister will point to as having done in the South aside the second Niger Bridge that was started by the Obasanjo administration and still uncompleted.
Governance is about making life comfortable for the citizens. We travel to western countries and see how governments make citizens’ comfortability the centre of their policies, but in Nigeria that seems to be an asking for too much. Government here seems set out to make policies that will make life hell for not only her citizens but also businesses, which is why many businesses have left our shores to set up in other African markets. Foreign direct investments ratio has been at its worst rate under this government. Instead of making its Ease of Doing business policy a reality, it has become a mirage for investors.
This government has continued to burrow the life of the economy out, and impose taxes intermittently, coupled with tariffs with obnoxious regulations on businesses and its people. Such is the ill-advised closure of the border (Nigeria’s economic routes) for over one year: no economy can survive that way; and making Form M for foreign exchange unavailable at the Central Bank to businesses. Coupled with that is the reckless stealing of crude oil for years, which got worse under this government.
All these retrogressive developments are killing the health of the nation and the life of its citizens. It’s a shame.
