Whoever has plied the Owode-Ilaro road in Yewa South Local Government Area of Ogun State in recent times must have sworn not to ever again dare the gullies, potholes and muddy mires strewn innumerably all over it.
It feels like a lucky escape from death after a journey through the road has ended. The road, not more than 30 kilometres, runs from Owode to Ilaro, the local government headquarters, with not less than five towns interspersed between.
Those towns and other settlements along the road surely couldn’t have been in the thoughts of the federal and state governments. You would not be able to point to any inkling of modernity in those places.
It is rather puzzling that a road—a federal road, it must be stated—has continued to defy rehabilitation plans by successful governments.
More puzzling is that there seems to be a conscious silence on the plight of the people whose livelihood depends to some extent to the condition of the road.
It couldn’t have been a farfetched thing for the state government to rehabilitate the road and later seek reimbursement from the Federal Government.
The road is crucial to the people of Ogun West, one of the three senatorial districts of the state. Remarkably, there has always been felt a sense of injustice by the people of Yewa (Egbado) in Ogun State from the perceived lopsided scheme of things in the Gateway State.
This feeling is justified to some extent. However, the fact that nobody from the district has held the office of governor seems to dominate discussions on the unjustness that pervades Ogun politics.
This has clouded other important matters, especially concerning the masses who have always unfortunately been caught in the web of the indifference of the government and politicians to their parlous plights.
Governance is surely an arduous task. I think the excesses of the Nigerian brand of presidential system of government, especially in terms of the outrageous number of people that it needs to function, would have been forgiven if there had been any significant delivery of democratic dividends.
- Tobi Idowu
Ogun State.