ONE of the areas of serious “infrastructure deficit” (a fine euphemism for infrastructural decay) in Nigeria is in the area of our federal roads. Today, except in Abuja, there is hardly any federal road in any part of the country that is not a national disgrace.

Some of these roads have been in deplorable conditions for more than 12 years; 12 years during which budget provisions were annually made for the rehabilitation of these roads; 12 years during which Federal Roads Maintenance Agency, FERMA, and its staff received their salaries for just telling us how many more billions of Naira required to repair the dilapidated federal roads.

Last week, I was driving from Victoria Island, Lagos, to Surulere. On the Eko bridge heading to Apongbon, at exactly the point you would see Conoil building on Marina, if you looked to your right, I saw on the left side of the bridge a yawning gap; the usually small space between two spans of a bridge, we were told in secondary school, was to allow for thermal expansion, has become a hole that, in a few weeks, could swallow a car tyre.

The railing has completely come apart at its joint! I was alarmed! The whole stretch of the Eko Bridge, from Obalende end to Costain, is full of cracks and potholes! But this one was frightening.

Frightening because a bridge is designed for running weights, but because of the irresponsibility at Apongbon, Eko Bridge has been carrying deadweights as vehicles stay on it for hours! If I remember well, this is not the first time that the bridge has been under a threat of collapse. It took a long time and a huge contract sum to fix!

The Minister of Works was on a road show, inspecting Federal roads all over the country and dishing out ultimatum to contractors.

He recently had a retreat for his senior officials at the exotic Tinapa in Cross River State, during which he admonished that henceforth they will be held responsible for the quality of jobs in their areas of jurisdiction. So they weren’t before they went to Tinapa? Or did they need to be taken to Tinapa to be told that?

The question is, does anybody in the Federal Ministry of Works know about the present condition of Eko Bridge? At what point does the Ministry intervene to stave off a little pothole from becoming a complete dilapidation of a road and a little crack from becoming a collapsed bridge?

The truth is that the Federal Ministry of Works is too distant from the roads they are supposed to monitor and maintain. The directors who are supposed to be on ground have no empathy or connection with the roads. To them, they are just another “federal” job which cannot evoke in them the same sense of urgency as in those who use the roads daily.

In many instances, the “federal” officials, in all their lives, may know the roads only on the map; in some cases, other considerations distract them. There lies the problem of federal roads; they are like a goat owned by everybody but starved because nobody actually cares! At best, care comes too late.

I know that for political reasons, many people will object to getting the Federal Government off roads construction. But given the way virtually everything “federal” in this country has collapsed or failed, is it not time we reconsidered the concept of federal roads?

Money to maintain the roads

If the Federal Government must continue to construct “federal roads”, why not hand the roads over to the states for maintenance and disburse the maintenance funds to the states based on the length of the federal roads in each state? Many states have had to repair federal roads in their states and are reimbursed after.

But often the refund takes forever forcing the states to discontinue with such interventions. Why not, as a policy, give the states the money to maintain the roads? That way intervention can be quick because the users of the roads know when it is going bad and can hold their state governments responsible. The truth is that the “federal road” at the end of the day is a “local” road to the users!

The usual argument that the governors may pocket the money cannot be an excuse because it cannot be said that, right now, somebody somewhere is not pocketing the money. The current concept has only given us bad roads! We cannot continue with it and expect good roads, unless something is wrong with us! Now that we are tinkering with the Constitution, why don’t we tinker with it for the good of us all?

Abuse as a defence of Gov Orji’s faux pas

I HAVE read several advertorials defending what was obviously a faux pas by Governor Theodore Orji of Abia. All I have read is putrid lava of insult and abuse heaped on every individual and Governor who criticized the recent expulsion of non-indigenes from Abia Civil Service.

The abuse targets people from Imo State as if they are the only critics or as if the matter is a bilateral one between Imo and Abia. This is a matter that has reverberations wherever Ndigbo live in Nigeria! Any state can expel Igbo people in their service using Abia as justification.

Some of the abuse seems to be saying that two wrongs can make a right. Some have tried to justify the wrong policy by regurgitating a list of non-Abia indigenes who held political appointments in Abia State. Well, that is as it should be.

Moreover former Governor Orji Uzor Kalu who appointed those Igbo recognised the fact that they were “Aba boys” who grew up in Aba with him, and should be treated as sons of the soil, which vindicates those criticizing the puerile xenophobia.

As for one Dr Eze Chikamnayo, Special Adviser, Information, Strategy and Orientation to Gov. Orji, without preempting my response to his desperate effort to defame my character and impugn my integrity, I want to ask him where he was and what he was 20 years ago when I was at the centre of the agitation for the creation of Abia State?

Thirty years ago I have already made my name; where and what was he and his paymaster 30 years ago? The tragedy of Igbo land today is that those foisted on our people have no history of fighting a progressive cause. It takes a confused mind to say I misled someone who “creatively employed” 10,000 Imo youths! As for other vituperations of his, I will not dignify him here with an answer. We shall see.