Medicinerocky
If you want to gauge the level of development in Nigeria, drive through Lagos – Benin Expressway. That road is not only an artery from the uttermost end of the South West from the Atlantic to the South South and South East, it is also an empirical tool to benchmark the level of corruption in Nigeria as well as the nation’s adherence to basic traffic rules. I had the misfortune of driving through this hell-way last week to Delta State. At the end of the torturous adventure, I came to the inevitable conclusion that this nation is doomed for as long as she remains in the hands of Nigerian leaders. Except there is an urgent Providential redemptive grace to snatch the last remains of her carcass from the cruel jaws of the cruelest leadership that ever presided over any patch of earth, despair may soon be the only blanket left to cover whatever is left of a country once the model of the continent. That stretch of highway is bad; very bad. Especially the Ondo State axis of what was once conceived to be an expressway. It had been like this for as long as I could remember. And this is a warning to those from the East: when next you are travelling home, fly, don’t drive and don’t be driven either. Hell is on that road.
Demons stalk it with vengeful swagger. I shall expose the nature of these demons seriatim. Under normal conditions, the journey from Lagos to my hometown in Delta takes just four hours. We did it in nine hours. Don’t scream just yet. It became worse on our return. We had projected to return on a Sunday. Our permutation was that traffic would be light on this solemn day. We were wrong. This time, we spent a good eight hours crawling on this road. May be we were lucky this time. Yet, this is the road several roguish Nigerian governments had taken turns to award contracts for its renovation. Pray, what did Obasanjo do with all the billions voted to do this major road? Where did Yar’Adua keep all the billions his administration budgeted for roads across the country? And what is President Goodluck Jonathan doing now that he has the opportunity to correct the frailties of his predecessors? Yes, we saw tractors dotting certain parts of the road; we saw heaps of sand and gravel stacked at some points of the road. We saw traffic sign diverting traffic from one track of the dual carriageway to the other. But that was all we saw: idle tractors, inanimate road signs and naked gravels. We saw not the men to rev the tractors to action.
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We saw frustration grace the faces of commuters; we saw despair romance pain; we saw deep-seated anger; we saw incensed Nigerians cursing their leaders; we saw men and women resigned to fate; we saw agony bearing furrows on the faces of people; we saw commuters abandon their static vehicles to take up temporary tenancy in the bush; we saw all manner of vehicles breakdown: their technical perseverance stretched beyond acceptable threshold; we saw children weeping uncontrollably for want of comfort; we commuters holding circumstantially convoked meetings on the dirty median strips; we saw hell. Yes, the Lagos – Benin road is hell populated by diverse kinds of demons. The chief demon is the ubiquitous patch of bad spots. Potholes, ditches and craters seemed to have found a lucrative pastime on this road. Then, there is this other demon: the police. Never in human history have we seen a road so policed yet is the most insecure like the Lagos-Benin road. Every 50 metres, you bump into a police checkpoint where they do nothing but extort money at gunpoint from motorists. They manufacture offence. They create charges and they even give change to motorists who try to use the no-change alibi to evade paying tithes to the cops. With their antics, they contribute to the traffic logjam. Shame on you police! Step out for a mention, thou sun-tanned demon who loves mammon: the Customs.
Men of the Nigeria Customs Service have shamelessly constituted themselves into a legion of demons on the highway in utter advertisement of the incompetence that signpost the operations of this very important yet very corrupt paramilitary department of government. They claim to be hunting smugglers and contrabands. And you wonder how the smugglers manipulated the entry of the contrabands into the country if not for the corruption and incompetence of the Customs at the entry points. Why harass motorists on the highway whereas all that needed to be done was strengthen its operations at the entry points? This is an evil under the sun and only demons perpetrate evil. Men of the Customs are. There is yet another demon on the expressway. It is our inherent indiscipline. Nigerians are ruthlessly undisciplined. This finds bold expression in the manner motorists drive against traffic, overtake one another and undertake crazy on-the-wheel adventures. Our indiscipline is exemplified by the manner commuters dispose of banana peelings, soft drinks cans and bottles and other wastes through vehicle windows on the highway. Above all, the Lagos-Benin road advertises us as a nation without leadership.
It portrays us as aboriginal men and women governed by primitive leaders. From the looks on the faces of the commuters on that wet Sunday, you could tell Nigerians are no better than the early man that once rocked the cave. Yet, this same road presents President Goodluck Jonathan an opportunity to rise above the cloud of incompetence that has assailed the nation’s history of leadership. This project should be given to a competent contractor who will deliver service on time and real time. He has barely two months to do it before the December rush. President, this is the best Christmas gift you can give to millions of Nigerians.
