Communities deploy self help to salvage collapsed road

At 4:00 o’clock in the evening, day is still bright and visibility very clear. Several dozens of exuberant commercial motorcyclists otherwise called okadamen swarm the bumpy and dusty road and ride in full throttle. They are mindless of the deplorable condition of the road and the risk of a possible accident as a result of reckless riding. It appears that all that matters to the desperate young riders is how to make brisk business by carrying as many passengers as possible before close of day.

But suddenly, the unexpected happened; a reckless rider crashed an old woman on board his motorbike into a heap of sand by the roadside. The female passenger, about 60-year-old, wreathed in pains on the floor as the okadaman struggled to recover his motorbike. In a twinkle of an eye, a crowd of sympathisers converged at the scene. Some of them were raining abuses on the rude rider while others rushed the bleeding woman to a nearby hospital.

The woman, identified simply as Mama Sadiat, sustained a major injury on the last toe of her left leg. At a closer look, the toe had broken and was partially held to her feet by a ligament. On getting to the hospital, she was told that the toe would be amputated.

Earlier few days ago, two reckless riders carrying two passengers each were involved in a head-on collision with their bikes at Alausa area, along Wire and Cable/Ita Faaji area of Oganla/ communities. They all plunged into a gully in the middle of the road. Those involved in the crash sustained injuries on different parts of their bodies with their clothes drenched with blood and murky effluent water from the gutter.

The bumpy, winding and dusty road linking Wire and Cable, Orisumbare, Oganla and Alada communities to Abule-Owo to Agbofieti communities is a terrible nightmare to the residents of the area. Findings showed that some residents of the communities have already locked up their houses and relocated to other parts of Ibadan metropolis where condition of roads are better.

Mrs Oyinkansola Aremu is one of the house owners in the area who have relocated from their houses to the metropolis The mother of four whose husband lives in the United Kinfdom, moved from their personal residence to a rented apartment at Mokola area of Ibadan following what she described as an awful experience that she had during the rainy season of last year in her community.

Two of her daughters were reportedly involved in an accident along the Agbofieti- Abule Owo road as their vehicle plunged into a deep gully while raining. Mrs Aremu said: “The experience was frightening and the shocking news of the accident still affects me. It was raining and the road was very slippery. Dayo, my 24-year-old daughter was the one driving and she is a licensed and experienced driver. They were on their way home when it started raining. On getting to a narrow and hilly area around Mosalasi Apena, they said the vehicle slipped into the ditch and my children got injured.

“That night, several other motorists had a similar experience in the area as their vehicles got trapped at different points. That is the sad situation we were encountering in the area that made me to move out of Oganla community. Apart from the problem of bad condition of road, the community is peaceful and crime rate is very low there.

Mr Fatai Oyewole, a transporter who has an ongoing building project at Papapa area of Oganla community reportedly abandoned the project midway as a result of the deplorable condition of the road. Based in Abeokuta, Ogun State capital, Mr Oyewole had planned to relocate to Ibadan after the completion of the building project but changed his mind because of the poor condition of  the road in the area.

Mr Kazeem, his friend who is a carpenter living in the area said: “Aafa Fatai Oyewole has decided that he would not continue with the building project as a result of poor road network in the area. He is not happy that there is no government presence in the area. He told me that the roads here are bad. Besides that, he said there is no stable electricity, market and no police post. He has decided to put the property for sale.”

He explained that it is disturbing that people are abadoning their homes due to bad road that leads to the communities. “Some of the completed houses that are un-occupied that you find here are up for sale. The owners planned to live in them but some of them have already decided to sell or rent them out because the roads that lead here are in terrible shape”.

It was gathered that efforts were made in the past to fix the road but to no avail. Several visits were said to have been paid to Ido Local Government Area of Oyo State to appeal to the council authorities to grade the road and comstruct drainage by the roadsides but they reportedly got empty promises.

A resident of the area, Mr Tijani Omotosho said: “The state government indicated in a newspaper publication barely one year ago that the road construction from Nihort to Wire and Cable would be embarked upon but nothing has been done between the Mosalasi Apena, Orita-Faaji and Wire and Cable axis of the road.”

In order to rescue the road from the near collapsed state, the landlords association in the Orisunmbare community along the Wire and Cable/Orita-Faaji road launched a toll levy of N50 per motorbike, N100 per car and N200 per articulated vehicle plying the route. However, the men were unable to go far in addressing the matter. As a result, the condition of the road became worse. When questioned, residents of the area said the executives were unable to give concrete explanation on why they failed.

In order to safe the situation, Saturday Tribune learnt that women in the community teamed up to take the bull by the horn by taking over the repair of the road. Since they took over the maintenance of the road six months ago, they are seen, on daily basis, collecting a token of between N200 and N50 from motorists and commercial motorcyclists (okada riders) as daily fees for repair.

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The women said they took over the road repair because they were no longer able to cope with the deplorable state of the major road linking the communities with the other parts of Ibadan.

To kick off, the women said they raised the sum of N400,000 by levying each household within the community sum of N3,000 for the repair of the road which became especially worsened by torrential rainfalls last year. Within the first two weeks of resumption, the women cut the attention of people of the community by their performance.

A resident of the Orisunmbare community who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said: “The women took over the repair of the road following the failure of their husbands and male elders to achieve any remarkable result.They could not account for about N800,000 said to have been collected as toll levy from road users”.

One of the women, Mrs Kudirat Adigun, said: “The hardship being faced daily by the people living in the community was the reason why women decided to take over the repair of the road.

“We have made several appeals to the concerned authorities to help us to repair this road, especially the bad portions, including the Mouka Foam Junction, Orisunmibare Community, Town Hall and Alawusa, down to Ita-Faaji, but no help is forthcoming.

“We are suffering untold hardship as a result of the bad condition of this road. We are finding it difficult to go out and even come in because of the bad road. We are getting stranded, returning to our homes whenever we go out. Majority of us women in this community are not car owners but we have children who have cars and other vehicles. Their vehicles break down on a daily basis and they keep expending money on the repairs.

“Commercial vehicles are not plying this road and the okada riders that usually ply the road from Wire and Cable to Ita Faaji are threatening to stop plying the road as they complain of damage to their vehicles and poor health conditions occasioned by the bad road.

“The situation became more worrisome when a pregnant woman was injured when she fell from an okada recently. Another woman had her leg badly damaged when another felled her down. We, there and then, decided to take our fate in our hands and started collaborating to ensure the repair of the road as things are becoming extremely difficult for us each passing day”.

She disclosed that they used the initial N400,000 that was gathered to buy 20 truck loads of stones and granites to start the repair work..”We, therefore, resolved to levying motorists and okada riders between N200 and N100 per day to raise more money. While some are cooperating, many others are not supportive”.

The very bad portions of the road have been reclaimed, however she said: “We still need more help and support from the people. According to her, there is need to build a colvert at Mouka Foam area. The estimate for that is 12 rings and 25 bags of cement”.

To achieve this by collecting N100 toll levy from vehicles would take longer than necessary and the women said it would be ideal to have built the colvert before the coming rain in March so that the road would not become impassable again.

Mrs Adigun said: “It is usually very difficult to make motorists in the area pay the toll levy. What we need to do among ourselves is to appeal to those who can contribute more to give us bags of cement and rings. We need to hire excavator. bulldozer and grader to work on the road as soon as posdible. Projection for the three is N600,000. We appealed to politicians who came to seek our vote to help. All they gave us was N200,000.

“When we took over from the men who were handling the road maintenance, they handed some granite over with the sum of N30,000. So far since we took over, we have spent close to N1.2 million. Those of us women who are doing this work are over 60 years old and we are tired. However, we continue to do it because the road became impassable and accident was happening with people getting stranded on the road. If care was not taken, we would not be able to move in and out of the communities”.

The women appealed to both the state and local government to rescue them from the hardship being faced in the area as a result of poor state of the road saying the essence of governance is to provide basic social infrastructure for growth of commerce and good life.