Poor Nigerians and their poor roads

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Have you travelled Nigerian roads lately? No, I am not asking you our ‘ogas at the top’, neither are National Assembly members invited to this question. We, the owners of the question, know ourselves. We are the wretched of Nigeria — the puns in the political chess game of the Nigerian powers that be. I recently visited Ido-Ekiti. Yes, the same legendary Ido-Faboro, headquarters of Ido/Osi Local Government Area of Ekiti State, for the elaborate but befitting funeral ceremony of Pa Joseph Alo engineered by his illustrious son, Prophet Sam OluAlo of the CAC Adamimogo fame. Travelling from Ibadan to Ido-Ekiti showed one of the pointers to the reasons our lawmakers wanted the type of luxurious vehicles they have forced us to buy for them.

To put it mildly, our roads are bad! In Ibadan, at Ikire, Gbongan, Ile Ife, the Ife Bypass, Itwure, Aramoko… All the way, travellers are greeted by tortuously bad patches that lead to compelling and debilitating diversions. These are just a few examples on just one route.

Perhaps, the only stretch of the journey from Ibadan to Ekiti that would not elicit cries of woe is the short sprint between Iwaraja and Fabo and (or) onwards to Efon Alaaye. Taking that as an example, it means that our federal lawmakers see these horrendous roads and have chosen their best possible means of avoiding them — by playing the ostrich. Our lawmakers are acquiring wings to fly to Abuja instead of creating the means of building the roads that would make us a better economy.

Our lawmakers and our servants at the executive arm of government are in the same boat. They are all avoiding a problem they are meant to solve. They are also shifting blames and pointing fingers. That is why the National Assembly members have reacted to the massive outcry against their acquisition of expensive luxury cars by saying we should also torchlight the ministers and heads of federal government agencies.

Indeed, we have arrived at another season of sad reality. The only positive in this period of financial anomie is that we are seeing how a fowl is eating the entrails of another fowl. The legislators are subtly prodding lamenting Nigerians to look in the direction of the federal ministers and other members of the executive arm of government. They are winking at and nodding to us to revolt against appointed officials in the executive arm of government because those ones seem to be cornering juicier perks of office than they the federal lawmakers could. By urging us to consider what the ministers and heads of federal government parastatal agencies are doing, they are tacitly saying our expensive cars et al are a child’s play in comparison.

Unfortunately, dear Senate and House of Representatives, we are still numbed by the humongous amount you are investing in your personal comfort at our expense. And we are still dazed by the arrogance and insensitivity with which you are flinging this issue of your vehicles and sundry personal comfort in our faces. We admit that your positions have twisted our laws and rendered us helpless when we seek implementation of these laws, but must there not be a place for morality? I think we should spur you so that you can also spur the executive you are pointing at. Those ones are even beyond our shouting reach!

On 4 July, 1982, it was reported that members of the Nigerian National Assembly and the civil servants in the Nigerian legislature were in what the newspaper said was a ‘war’. The Senate had approved a resolution earlier approved by the House of Representatives (on March 24th of the same year) for there to be some money for them as allowances when they are on official duties. The lawmakers sought a total of N120.00 (one hundred and twenty Naira only) for accommodation (N70.00); meals (N30.00); incidental expenses (N20.00). They also wanted typewriters valued at N750.00 and a duplicating machine that cost N1,250.00 for their offices. The Senate came up with the resolution via a report presented by the Chairman, Senate Committee on House and Administration, Dr. Sola Saraki. The approval, the report said, cut across political party lines.

So, why would there be a war over such modest demands? The civil service running the National Assembly refused to approve the demands of both chambers of the legislature. Their reason? Apart from the austerity declared by the government of President Shehu Shagari, it was unheard of for the lawmakers to be asking for approval of a total of N2,120.00 (two thousand, one hundred and twenty Naira) each when the Auditor-General of the Federation had advised against the payment of the money.

The Clerk of the National Assembly back then, Alhaji Gidado Idris, could not be heard on the matter, according to the report, but he refused to approve it. The lawmakers fumed because the National Assembly staff members told them that the money they sought was illegal. From the report, it was gleaned that the lawmakers wanted the approval and payment as they were dusting their luggage to embark on their annual vacation from July 12 of the same year.

There are many lessons from the report of that encounter. For the lawmakers of yore, there was modesty and humility in their demands. There was nothing to suggest that what they wanted to buy would be packed into their various homes when their business of lawmaking for Nigerians was over. This is unlike what obtains today. What we saw Mr Sunday Karimi, a senator from Kogi State exhibit when he came on national television to defend or (is it?) explain the rationale for spending so much on just cars amid crippling poverty in the country, was irkful. In his words and actions during the TV interview, Karimi was a bad representation of humility and modesty. He was rather a beautiful model of a haughtiness that Nigerians have now attached to our political officeholders. And it is trite to state that Karimi’s show enkindled the fire of that matter and moved it from a smoulder to a rage.

Compared to the Senate of Joseph Wayas, Dr Sola Saraki et al of 41 years ago, the difference might include adjustments to reflect the inflation of 2023. However, there is no adjustment or sugar-coating the death of morality in the political and fiscal life of our current political leaders. Those tormenting the country today are, in some ways, scions of the sordid past or people who have, in sometimes crooked ways, forced their way through the glass ceiling. The lamentations therefore continue.

One Nigerian put it this way: “Rather than fix the roads and make them motorable for themselves and everyone else, they’d instead buy off-road luxury vehicles to shield them from the wahala of the bad roads. For your information, these vehicles have bulletproof features in case you want to get so angry and unfortunate to attack them.

“Instead of improving security for the benefit of all, they’d pocket the security formations and stations in their states. They would second all the DSS and policemen available to themselves. They would relocate to their homes and offices and secure them rather than secure the people.

“Instead of fixing healthcare, why not travel to Germany or Morocco or the U.K. or even far away United States when you feel a slight headache? Why fix hospitals in Nigeria when I can be a patient in foreign hospitals?

“In order to avoid incessant ASUU strikes, they send their children abroad for sound education.”

Nigerians other than those people who fly more than they ply the roads they are now afraid to tread, also need to drive their third-grade Tokunbo or Belgium cars. They have no access to urgent N160 million to buy bullet-proof cars for the same roads our leaders are running away from.

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