Road Trips In Nigeria, Crime Against Self!

 By Ikechukwu Amaechi

When the Benin Bypass was commissioned in 2002 in the first term of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s presidency, the idea was to make the life of motorists less harrowing. Before the road, built at a cost of N10.2 billion, was opened for public use, cutting through the Benin City traffic gridlock was always a nightmare. The 24-kilometre Bypass connects the Ore-Benin road with the Benin-Asaba end, thereby saving motorists who had no business in Benin the stress of getting stuck in traffic in the highly congested city with its litany of markets and very dense population.

Before the Bypass, it will take an average of about four hours to meander through Benin to Okada Town, just on the outskirts of the city, more time than it will take for those travelling from Owerri, the Imo State capital, to Benin or even from Lagos to Okada Town.

And it worked. Sadly, 24 years after this significant milestone in road infrastructure was achieved, motorists are, once again, forced to drive through Benin City due to the total collapse of the Bypass. In Nigeria, the more things change, the more they remain the same.

This Christmas, I encountered that road which no longer bypasses anywhere, twice. It has become, literally, the road to the biblical Golgotha (Place of the Skull) – a place of harrowing experiences and unmitigated suffering.

To be sure, the euphoria that greeted the commissioning of the Bypass ebbed shortly after when one lane failed as a result of some structural defects. The resultant bad spot near the Ikpoba River led to series of fatal accidents after the bad lane was temporarily closed for repairs by Reynolds Construction Company Limited. According to a newspaper report of February 10, 2008, more than 35 people died at the Ikpoba Slope section of the Bypass within three months of closing one lane of the dual carriage road. Most of the accidents were caused by heavy-duty vehicles whose brakes failed while descending the slope.

But the failed portion, as scandalous as it was then, pales into insignificance when compared to the total collapse of the Bypass now. In fact, it is a misnomer to still call it a road. It is a death trap – the shame of a nation. There are failed roads all over Nigeria, but when it comes to state of disrepair, the Benin Bypass takes the cake.

When I first encountered the Bypass on December 21, I could not complete the journey. Midway, we could no longer proceed because a trailer trying to navigate the treacherous route had fallen and what remained of the road was completely blocked, forcing us to do a detour by taking the Benin-Ekpoma-Auchi Road, in order to access the Agbor end of the Benin-Asaba expressway. That took well over three hours in a kidnapper-infested environment.

But the return journey last weekend on the same Bypass is an experience I will not forget in a hurry. It is an experience that will amount to extreme wickedness to wish on even your enemy. Driving on every stretch of that road like I did last Sunday felt like watching a scene in a horror film. But this time, I was the lead actor in the horror film. The craters on the road were so big and deep that you dare not drive near any articulated truck. You need a special driving skill to survive a trip on that goddamned Bypass.

And then, when we thought we had survived, having reached what I considered the home stretch after Ijebu-Ode, we encountered another nightmare. Because of the traffic gridlock at the Sagamu Interchange due to the ongoing rehabilitation of the Shagamu-Iperu Junction section of the Shagamu-Ore- Benin expressway, we were advised to make a detour from Ijebu-Ode in Ogun State to Ikorodu in Lagos State through the 34-kilometre Ikorodu-Itokin road.

Again, like the Benin Bypass, the Ikorodu-Itokin road is a federal road. Both are death traps. No country in the 21st century ought to punish its citizens with such roads, not the least, the country that brags being the giant of Africa.

To be fair, incensed by the very low quality of palliative works done by Geld Construction Ltd on the road, the Minister of Works, David Umahi, in February 2025 ordered the contractor to mobilise back to the site or risk arrest.

Umahi, who gave the order while inspecting Federal Government projects in Lagos, including the 78-kilometre Lagos-Ota-Abeokuta Expressway and the Lagos-Badagry-Seme Border highway frowned at the level of work done by the contractor.

“We are giving him 24 hours to return to the site. We’ve done appreciable funding. The President is very much interested in this route. He has directed that we should complete this route. What the contractor is doing is not acceptable… We have invited the contractor to come on Sunday by 12 o’clock for a meeting… Let me warn that if the contractor fails to resume, we will hand over the roads and the contractor to security agencies. We will not continue to pursue contractors. We have the law of the land, and nobody takes the money of the Federal Government and goes to sleep. So they are actually going to remobilise to the site within 24 hours,” the minister declared.

It is almost one year thence. I don’t know in what state the road was then that angered the minister. But no road can possibly be in a worse state than the Ikorodu-Itokin road I drove on last Sunday. So, I can hazard a guess: it is even worse today than when Umahi gave his ultimatum in February 2025 and Nigerians are worse for it.

But the country loses more. Why? Good road infrastructure boosts economic growth by facilitating trade, cutting transport costs, attracting investment, and creating jobs, because as Margaret Thatcher, former British Prime Minister, once said: “You and I come by road or rail, but economists travel on infrastructure.”

It also improves social well-being through better access to healthcare, education, and services, enhancing safety, reducing travel times, and fostering community connectivity, the very point another former British leader, Mr Tony Blair, made when he said: “If you are living in a community that has become fragmented and left behind, there is not proper investment in it and so on, in the end, the answer is to make sure that we go and we help those communities, we educate the people properly, we build the necessary infrastructure of support for people.”

Unlike the crater-riddled Benin Bypass and Ikorodu-Itokin road which delay and hinder development, good road network fosters progress and national strength. It signals a functioning society. Countries as a matter of national policy improve their transportation infrastructure which has a knock-on effect – because robust transportation infrastructure creates economic development, which in turn puts people back to work. But most importantly, it enhances safety and improves local communities.

What else are Nigerians asking for? Nigeria will not make progress so long as the road infrastructure remains in such sorry state. I counted the number of trailers conveying goods from the wharfs in Lagos to the markets in the South-East that fell on the road with goods worth millions of naira lost. Those that arrive safely spend days on a journey that should take hours.

Bad roads such as the Ikorodu-Itokin stretch make it easier for terrorists to strike and abduct hapless victims. I am lucky not to have been a kidnap victim last Sunday. And I was with my daughter. All the elements were there. The only missing link was that the bandits didn’t show up.

We can do better as a people. Road trips in Nigeria need not be a crime against self, an attempted suicide of sorts, which was what one of my mischievous friends accused me of doing. The tragedy is that the so-called leaders don’t give a damn. Worse still, the people who have been taken for granted for too long seem not to care a hoot either.

*Amaechi is the publisher of TheNiche