East-West Road And Shame Of A Nation

 By Jerome Utomi

The world is aware that the Niger Delta area or the South-South geopolitical zone of Nigeria is prone to many negative influences as a result of successive Federal Governments’ neglect of the region. Some of these challenges are well known and glaring, yet no attention given to addressing them, even though they have a substantial impact on people, corporations and social levels.

A typical example of such monumental neglect is the shoddy state of the East-West Road, a strategic road connecting the country’s busiest and foremost commercial cities in the region. That is why it is baffling that successive administrations in Nigeria had allowed the road to degenerate to such a state of disrepair.

Lagos-Ibadan Expressway: Image Of The Nigerian In The Mirror

 By Adekunle Adekoya

Three years ago, on December 20, 2019, to be exact, Dr. Olorunnimbe Mamora, Minister of State for Health, had reason to leave Lagos on January 20, 2019, to deliver a lecture at an event in Abeokuta. According to him, he got trapped in a traffic jam on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, and ended up spending five hours on the journey, normally a breezy trip of about one hour. When Mamora arrived at the event, it was almost over, as most of the other guests, including former President General Olusegun Obasanjo, had arrived, played their roles, and left. 

The minister, apologising to his hosts, said: “I want to apologise for my lateness. I left Lagos early enough. I ended up spending five hours for a one-hour journey. We got ‘hooked up’ with Magodo. The journey that should have taken us one hour, took us five hours. That is the unpalatable state of our roads, even my pilot car could not pilot me through the ordeal.”

Poor Governance Should Stop

 By Terry  Adeniji

The government at all levels in the country is collapsing, the non-state actors have hijacked the reign of government from the people in power, especially the regulatory bodies in charge of our critical sectors, and the poor citizens are made to bear the brunt of their non-performance.

In the area of security, the Department of State Services, the police, and other security agents are helpless as the terrorists and bandits continue to terrorise people, killing, maiming and collecting ransom in millions of naira paid in cash and yet, the same huge money finds its way back to the bank and all these security agents can’t track it. Something is clearly wrong with our system, and yet nobody is resigning.

Why Lagos-Ibadan Should Not Become Abuja-Kaduna

 By Semiu Okanlawon

Imagine yourself having two daughters traveling along a route and you suddenly receive information that the very direction they were headed, a kidnap incident had happened some eight hours before and that vehicles from where the hapless victims were snatched away were still left on the road, with no one knowing the fate of the captives.

That was my situation early morning of Saturday October 28th. To worsen the phobia, a call put through to them to confirm how far they had gone with their journey showed they were just some 5 minutes drive to the very scene of the kidnap the night before.