Ogbaru Road is a Political Road

This is not the time for evoking or succumbing to unnecessary political or ethnic sentiment.

MANY of my fellow countrymen, East of the Niger, were quick to attribute his initial body language to the familiar politicking which our past politicians have subjected the rehabilitation of the South- Eastern federal roads. I held a contrary view.

Skeptics were recently proved wrong with the federal government's approval of N600 million for the repairs of major South-Eastern roads and its threat to terminate the Onitsha - Owerri road contract awarded to ( is it Greek or the Lebanese firm now) Consolidated Contractors Company Ltd, for non-performance since one year ago when the job was awarded and N4 billion paid as mobilisation.

From the way the Works Minister, Senator Adeseye Ogunlewe, responded to Abia State House of Assembly's hunger strike over the deplorable state of the South-Eastern roads, it was obvious to discerning eyes that he is a man of conscience, determined to make a difference on the matter.

When the news of the hunger strike broke in the newspapers, he entreated the law makers to call off the protest with an assurance that he will take positive steps to assuage their anger. He went ahead to invite himself (even though he couldn't attend) to the conference of South-Eastern states. Speakers of the Houses of Assembly, quickly convened in the wake of the hunger strike. Good move.

Criminal neglect

He didn't stop there. The Honourable Minister sought to get to the root of the criminal neglect of the South-Eastern roads. The kind of neglect that has left the roads crated and completely worn off in many areas. He sought to address the matter fundamentally rather than from the surface; perhaps borrowing from his ethnic Yoruba proverb which says that 'the pest that destroys the vegetable lives underneath the vegetable.

For once, a Minister of Works didn't behave like a typical I-don't-care Nigerian politician. He chose to investigate why a particular problem had persisted instead of tinkering with an ad hoc solution.

The man must have found it difficult to believe that successive governments deliberately refused to rehabilitate existing roads and construct new ones in the South- East for the sheer fun of it. What could have been the motive, he must have asked himself. What did these governments stand to gain, bearing in mind that the civil war ended over 33 years ago and the Eastern region represents one of the economic hot beds of our country, rich in human and natural resources. Even the PTF which brought succour to many parts of the country hardly made any impact in the South-Eastern front, apart from a few drug supplies which were resold by their middlemen.

Senator Ogunlewe went to work and before long, he discovered that the cause of the problem resides within his ministry. In a widely publicized statement, he revealed that high ranking operatives in his ministry from the South East, charged with the responsibility of supervising and ensuring that the roads were constructed to prescribed standards, have compromised themselves. Result is that these roads were poorly constructed or not constructed at all, like the case of Ogbaru road; yet they were certified as completed and payments made. According to the minister, he has documents showing that between 1993 and 1998, eighteen road constructions in the region were abandoned after mobilisation had been paid, and the culprits in these cases were our own indigenous contractors.

This revelation drew vitriolic flak of ethnic rhetoric from a few South-Eastern public commentators and politicians. The minister was accused of bias and an attempt to hound the South-Eastern senior civil servants out of their positions, a claim which I totally disagree with. I wouldn't go into the inverted motives and logic canvassed in the aftermath of the revelation, but one thing is clear: Senator Ogunlewe could have easily towed the path which his predecessors did; yet heaven did not fall. He could have conveniently ignored the hunger strikers till they have starved enough to return to their wives' kitchens. After all, his predecessor, in all his four years in office, coupled with the special attention he got from the presidency, did nothing about the South-Eastern highways, not minding that his wife hails from that part of the country. Instead, he sank billions of naira on a by-pass and inconclusive dual carriage way that bottles up traffic at the neck of the Niger bridge.

Objectionable state

Rather than lampoon the minister for daring to identify the factors responsible for the objectionable state of the South-Eastern highways, I would have expected our South- East loving commentators and politicians to have urged the minister to investigate the matter properly and deal with the culprits accordingly, whether they are from the South-East or elsewhere. This is not the time for evoking or succumbing to unnecessary political or ethnic sentiment. What the ordinary South-Easterners want now are pliable roads. The actions and inactions of these ministry operatives have made travelling to the South-East pernicious. Many have met their untimely death on these roads and huge resources are wasted daily on account of their selfishness and greed.

The minister's recent retraction, quoted in a daily paper, of his earlier stand indicating his South-Eastern directors for the pitiable state of the road did not help matters. The retraction, to me, is like saying the same thing in a different language. I liken it to the bird that flew off the ground to perch on a mound. For those who care to read in between the lines, the minister's statement rather than vitiate his earlier position, further reinforced it. He was quoted as blaming "the engineering representatives of government for not doing their work," and not the South-Eastern directors in the ministry.