Gboyega Akinsanmi
7 August 2007
opinion
Lagos — July was indeed a traumatic month in the family of Adedibu Ojerinde, a renowned professor of education and registrar of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB). His wife who was billed to travel to South Africa could not make the trip as she had an accident along Lagos-Ibadan Expressway due to bad state of the road.
THISDAY investigation revealed that Mrs. Odusola Oluwatoyin Ojerinde was travelling to South Africa to attend a conference last July where she was expected to deliver a paper. On her way to Lagos to board a plane at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, unknown to her driver, who was not familiar to the bad spots on the expressway, ran into a deep pothole. The car swerved and plunged into an abyss and Dr. Dibu-Ojerinde died immediately, leaving behind her husband and four children. Luckily, her driver at the time of investigation was said to be responding to treatment with little hope of surviving.
Last March, Mr. Afolabi Oladiran, a doctoral candidate in the department of political science, University of Ibadan, had a terrible experience on this same route. Oladiran, a strategic and development expert, who just got a lecturing appointment in Houdegbe North American University, a private tertiary institution in Benin Republic, escaped death by a dint of divine providence.
Oladiran said if because God wanted to preserve him, "the government indecision to repair this road would have raped his five-month daughter of filial bliss and attention, made his benign wife who is her early thirties a widow and cut short his dream to make substantial impact in the emerging global security environment." Thanks to his maker who spared him from the accident in which he said no fewer than five persons lost theirs instantly. He said some too were soaked with blood and sustained deep cuts in their bodies, "thus making hope of surviving very slim."
Dr. Larinde Akinleye, a senior lecturer in the Department of Communication and Language Arts (CLA), also of the University of Ibadan, ended his flourishing career almost at the same spot Ojerinde died last month. He was on his one-year leave, which he was spending in Nigeria's first private tertiary institution, Babcock University, Ilishan Remo, Ogun State.
Adeleye left his Ibadan home one fateful Monday morning after spending a memorable weekend with his immediate family members. But he did not return to witness the ecstatic atmosphere of his home, neither did his wife and children have opportunity to enjoy their father's comic smiles and winks. He had passed on more than one year ago, but his dependants are yet to recover from the shock of his sudden demise, which they attributed to the indecision of the government to repair the same road. "It has raped us filial care and attention. It has also denied us his sense of humour. It has thrown us out in the cold, where we have no other person that can keep us warm," his widow, who is coping with the home challenges, told THISDAY recently during visit to her home in Ibadan.
Almost everyday, Nigerians always wake up to read the reports of ghastly accidents in the national newspapers, triggering lingering fears in their feeble minds to travel this route. The case is made worse with the regular explosion of tankers transporting oil products from different jetties in Lagos to the eastern, northern and other geo-political regions. This is due to the moribund state of refineries, which are expected to serve oil depots in other parts of the country.
Last month for instance, just after Redemption Camp, a petroleum-filled tanker ran into a deep pothole. The driver lost control, swerved sideways and stumbled eventually. The tanker burst spilling its fuel content. Hell let loose when a little spark ignited underneath an 18-seater Toyota Hiace bus whose driver defied cautions and warnings of several hands signaling him to stop.
The cost of human, vehicle and property lost to the inferno was enormous. No fewer than two hundred persons, both old and young, were roasted to death. Several hundreds were taken to the emergency department at the Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital, Sagamu, Lagos State University Teaching, Ikeja and other nearest public and private hospitals in Ogun and Lagos States. Reports said that fifty vehicles with some passengers on board were reduced to ashes. When THISDAY visited the scene recently, there were still charred vehicles that still littered the scene.
THISDAY checks further revealed that three new newly wedded couples, which were looking forward most expectantly to consummating their marriage that night, could not live their dreams beyond the warm embrace they had at the receptions. "It is most disturbing! It is indeed shocking! What could be more heart-rending than how innumerable successful people are falling victims of ghastly accident at the prime of their lives? Yet our leaders are not bothered.
"The last also administration no made serious effort to repair this highway," Oladiran, who almost ended his life and career on this same route lamented. He blamed the Federal Government for the calamity he said has "continued to befall a good number of Nigerians travelling the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and has made their dependants to face the odds of life."
These are true examples of ordeal that several travellers experienced along this expressway. In 2006 alone, reports showed that several thousands lost their lives on this route. Their dependants, especially children and wives, are left in their lurch, now struggling for survival and cannot make both ends meet due to the absence of parental support.
Also, a good number of victims, who survived the terrible accidents on the same route, are living in despair and hardship in the wards of orthopaedic sections in University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan and Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) expectantly looking to heaven for their end to come just because they are no longer interested in lying down all days long and tired of being burden to their relatives who are charged to minister to their need and take care of them.
Oladiran recalled how the former Minister of Work, Chief Seye Ogunlewe politicised and turned the ministry to a medium to project the image of People's Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos, then a stronghold of Alliance for Democracy (AD). He described Ogunlewe's ambition, which pitched him against former Governor Ahmed Bola Tinubu of Lagos State as the greatest crime against humanity. While commending his effort in establishing Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA), Oladiran said the institution was never properly directed and manned to achieve a set of life-saving objectives, which informed its urgent establishment during the regime of President Olusegun Obasanjo.
"Rather, the former minister turned FERMA to an instrument of political game. Its consequences are collateral on the lives of well-meaning Nigerians. If not because God wanted to spare my life, I would have passed on to the other end," Oladiran lamented. Enraged with what he described as governance failure, he said, "our leaders are yet to understand why they were elected into public offices."
However, confronted with the teeming cases of road accidents along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, FERMA Managing Director, Mr. Olubunmi Peters disclosed during his visit to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mrs. Patricia Etteh recently that only N60 billion of the N650 billion budget for roads in the last eight years was spent on the maintenance, thus creating a wide gap to bridge.
Peters, an engineer whose agency just employed more than one hundred new staff apparently to step up the maintenance of federal roads, confirmed that "over the last eight years, N650 billion has gone into the road sector, while N60 billion went into road maintenance. "But our campaign is that if we took N70 billion, we would have applied it to about 3,500 kilometres. This is the reality we are coping with, and at the same time giving us bad image in the public space."
He told the Speaker that most of the present roads were constructed in the 1970s with a budget of 96 million pounds per year. He however said that despite the cost of constructing the roads, "they were still constructed for a duration of 10 to 15years." But he said by 1995 or thereabout, the roads began to degenerate because of lack of maintenance culture on the part of succeeding governments.
"The fact is that we never maintained these roads. There was no day it was done until 1996. When FERMA jumped into operation-maintain-500 roads, it was maintaining roads that had already collapsed. It was a medium term strategy for road maintenance, for a turn around of at least 15 per cent of road network, which is now in good condition. I therefore plead with the House to provide for at least N70 billion so that we can overlay or strengthen 3,500 kilometres and 34, 000 kilometres within the next 10 years," he said.
But beyond the campaign of FERMA boss, Nigerians have condemned the input of all works ministers in the last eight years. Mr. Dele Ojo, a road expert, said the House of Representatives should not hesitate to invite all the past Ministers of Works, especially during the Olusegun Obasanjo Administration and investigate them on why federal roads "still remain in terrible state of disrepair.
He also called on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to commence thorough investigation of how billions of naira voted for the repair and maintenance of these roads was spent without results.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2007 This Day. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
