By Muyiwa Adetiba

The President commissioned the Benin-Ore Expressway a couple of weeks ago. This must be good news to those who ply that road and who must have suffered untold hardship for several years. I don’t ply the road: not any more.

But there was a time when my parents-in-law lived in Benin and it was necessary to visit occasionally for one thing or another. Then the trip from Lagos used to take about three hours give or take some 20 minutes depending not necessarily on traffic—because there was hardly any—but on your car and your level of recklessness on the road. We were fairly reckless like most young people, and going to Benin was usually fun. A full tank would take you to the outskirt of Benin where you refuelled and rendezvoused with your convoy.

Then pot holes started appearing and they were not fixed. And like a stitch that was not attended to in time, the pot holes became craters and long stretches became virtually impassable. At a time, wise counsel dictated that you abandoned the road entirely. Many took to flying in spite of the inconvenience of not being mobile in town. This took us back to the days when the expressway was not built.

It is therefore good that the government is working on Sagamu-Benin road. It is however sad that the past military and civilian administrations had allowed all means of transportation especially road and rail, to suffer this level of neglect. I don’t travel that well normally and any excuse, any argument not to travel is usually deployed by yours sincerely. So the horror tales experienced by commuters on the Benin-Ore road, or the Lagos-Ibadan road and many of our so called express roads have never been experienced by me. Until last week.

Last Friday October 3, was not a day I would have chosen to travel out of town if I had a choice. It was the beginning of a long weekend with Monday and Tuesday being public holidays. It was also a day before the Muslim’s Eid-El Kabir festival. Coincidentally, it was also the first Friday of the month which meant the Redeemed Camp along the Ibadan expressway would fill up with the Christian faithful.

But a call I could not refuse summoned me to Ilesha on a short notice. I knew the earlier I left home the better my chances of beating the traffic. So could I be brave and leave before the break of dawn? But this was too far out of my comfort zone so I tarried till the morning had been brightened by its early light. An optimistic me got to the dismantled toll gate by 7am. An optimistic me smiled at the first sign of a hold up thinking it would soon clear. It didn’t. As soon as one cleared, another took its place.

This was the state of affairs until we got to the Redeemed Camp. All of us who thought things would get better after passing the camp were disappointed. It did not. Instead, it got seriously worse. The slow moving traffic got to a halt. Five, ten, twenty minutes passed without any movement. With nothing else to do, I looked around me. I didn’t know what I was expecting, but it is amazing what you can see when you are stuck on a bad road.

You see land marks that you had never noticed before no matter how often you had sped past them in the past. You see sign posts that are as funny as they are ridiculous. You see clearings and settlements. You see different vegetation. But the most interesting scenery is provided by your fellow travellers. I am not exaggerating that I saw at least four cars each carrying about eleven, twelve passengers. One had three people lapping themselves in a row of three at the back while the passenger seat in front had two.

Another sat four at the back with another four on their laps and two on the passenger seat in front. Another had Oga and Madam with three little children lapping themselves. The Madam had one kid on her lap while Oga had none. But the way he sat with one cheek of his buttocks showed he was as uncomfortable as the others. At least two cars had two rams peeping out of their slightly opened boots. As you can guess, these cars were not in the best of shape physically.

And if I could feel some distress in my air-conditioned car, you could imagine how these people must be feeling. Some were sweating; some were eating; many were uncomfortable. As for the rams… well, do they cramp? Because if they do then these poor animals must have been in serious pains.

By now, restless souls were coming out of their cars to stretch their legs and see what the heck was going on. It was time to make friends and share some banter. After all, no matter who you are or who they are, we are now kindred spirits. One told me he had walked a quite a bit but couldn’t see the genesis of the traffic. His conclusion was that we were in for a long wait. He was right. I once looked through the side mirror and saw four, five gangling youths approaching. My heart skipped a beat. What if they were armed?

But they were fellow travellers trapped like I was, on the road. The hawkers had a field day. From the sheer number and variety of their wares, you would think you were in one of those busy markets. The distressing thing was that they were mostly young kids who should be in school.

We eventually got to Ibadan at 12 noon. A journey of one or so hours had taken five. It took another one and half hours to get out of Ibadan. I am not going to conclude this article with any political statements on governance, leadership, traffic management etc. I think the experience makes its own statement. I just hope some of those who were on the road with me will read this and experience some release.