After five and half hours trying to get from Ibadan to Lagos on
Saturday September 14, I can declare on behalf of travelling Nigerians
that the LAGOS IBADAN ROAD IS A FAILED ROAD and deserves EMERGENCY ONE
WEEK REHABILITATION. Even though most Presidency bigwigs and National
Assembly (NASS) members use helicopters and planes, the millions of
fellow citizens who use the Lagos-Ibadan road daily demand emergency
repairs to their cars and the road. A powerful, good government can
cause Julius Berger and RCC to employ thousands of unemployed Nigerians
to fill the potholes on the road in one or two weeks if they have any
love for Nigerians and sense of national pride and urgency. October 1,
Nigeria@53 is around the corner. Government should make this an
EMERGENCY GIFT to Nigeria. The Lagos-Ibadan former expressway is to be
fully refurbished in 24-30 months with an Infrastructure Bank loan of
N167b for the 127km road. Still too long, too slow.
Intelligent advisers should advise the President that accolades come from opening the completed road. The President should further reduce this contract to six or 12 months to be completed in his present term to attract political kudos and paparazzi. After all, who knows tomorrow or 2015? Even politicians do not live forever and must act positively when they hold power. Already Governor Segun Agagu has sadly gone, may he Rest In Peace; who next? The President should care about the millions of citizens and 100,000 vehicles suffering on the former expressway daily?
The celebrated release of human rights lawyer, Mike Ozekhome and the explanations of the motivation of the captors do not justify the execution of FOUR living souls from worth but not rich families, the police men! The released lawyer should attend the funerals of each dead policeman. He should then fight for better pay and conditions for police and better compensation for victims’ families. We, SAN lawyer and policemen are all equal in the sight of God.
Life is serious. Twenty-three killed in bridge disaster. Who will investigate the contractor and the ministry to exonerate them of corruption and incompetence in design and planning for flooding –it is, after all, a bridge? Which body will pay compensation to the victims? Folajomo Agunbiade, a student of Adekunle Ajasin University was shot in the head, for praying to God in tongues during an armed robbery that was not being resisted in her family home in Ibadan. Her mother is abroad trying to cater for her children. God knows that Folajomo is in heaven now but will that explanation comfort the family? A five-year old Nigerian had a limb amputated abroad because of bone cancer. I saw two children with sightless eyes from beatings in school and home. Another 10 killed this week in the ongoing Plateau Tiv and Berom farm-Fulani herder war, and we all still eat cow meat. Meanwhile politics seems more important. Shame!
The proposed Air Force museum is better late than never, good. Ditto for museums for all other areas e.g. transport, and academic subjects. What happened to the Army museum? We know about the Yar’Adua Museum. Where is the Aviation Museum which we begged for as the aviation authorities destroyed old planes for teaspoons and petty cash instead of giving them to the top technology universities and polytechnics and to science and aeronautical support for education, people’s museums and exhibitions? The Air Force should involve ministries of education, technology and the sciences.
So we need UNESCO and Gordon Brown to repeat what ASUU and all Education NGOs and unions and student bodies have been saying for 40 years, before government will listen at all levels? Gordon Brown offers more money to empower wayward corrupt governments; the same governments happily divert to corruption or other projects considered more important than children’s welfare and education. Again foreign money, like DFID’s, will help bail out corrupt Nigerian leadership. The less aid we get, the more Nigerian money will be spent correctly. Aid should be in the form of software, short stay, 1-3month scholarships and equipment.
Another 23 killed at a collapsed bridge in Katsina. No different from the thousands killed in the North this year by cow-farm violence, ‘no western book’ violence, kidnap and vehicle violence etc. Sorry, as you grieve, but look at the picture of the bridge disaster. Increasingly in the North, when we see pictures of collapsed roads, railways and bridges we see red laterite earth sometimes 20 feet deep but we see no stones, boulders, cement or iron rods supporting the laterite road. So once again the contractor, the supervising engineers, the ministries of works and finance must answer questions of culpability in these and other deaths. Rains sweep away weak, un-reinforced infrastructure. Who under-planned, under-budgeted, under-built the bridge and under-built the coupling to the immediate access structures which were dislocated from the bridge? Who has the names on the signatures on the documents? The COREN and the Nigerian Society of Civil Engineers and NGO civil rights groups need to do evaluation and soil checks just as forensic investigation is done with an air crash. Was the bridge poorly constructed for the expected rainfall?
CBN boasts that Nigeria has the second highest African reserves. This is being economical with the truth or using creative financial accounting procedures. Did he tell you the population to funds ratio in the other countries ahead of Nigeria? Nigerians are being slapped and punched repeatedly.
Intelligent advisers should advise the President that accolades come from opening the completed road. The President should further reduce this contract to six or 12 months to be completed in his present term to attract political kudos and paparazzi. After all, who knows tomorrow or 2015? Even politicians do not live forever and must act positively when they hold power. Already Governor Segun Agagu has sadly gone, may he Rest In Peace; who next? The President should care about the millions of citizens and 100,000 vehicles suffering on the former expressway daily?
The celebrated release of human rights lawyer, Mike Ozekhome and the explanations of the motivation of the captors do not justify the execution of FOUR living souls from worth but not rich families, the police men! The released lawyer should attend the funerals of each dead policeman. He should then fight for better pay and conditions for police and better compensation for victims’ families. We, SAN lawyer and policemen are all equal in the sight of God.
Life is serious. Twenty-three killed in bridge disaster. Who will investigate the contractor and the ministry to exonerate them of corruption and incompetence in design and planning for flooding –it is, after all, a bridge? Which body will pay compensation to the victims? Folajomo Agunbiade, a student of Adekunle Ajasin University was shot in the head, for praying to God in tongues during an armed robbery that was not being resisted in her family home in Ibadan. Her mother is abroad trying to cater for her children. God knows that Folajomo is in heaven now but will that explanation comfort the family? A five-year old Nigerian had a limb amputated abroad because of bone cancer. I saw two children with sightless eyes from beatings in school and home. Another 10 killed this week in the ongoing Plateau Tiv and Berom farm-Fulani herder war, and we all still eat cow meat. Meanwhile politics seems more important. Shame!
The proposed Air Force museum is better late than never, good. Ditto for museums for all other areas e.g. transport, and academic subjects. What happened to the Army museum? We know about the Yar’Adua Museum. Where is the Aviation Museum which we begged for as the aviation authorities destroyed old planes for teaspoons and petty cash instead of giving them to the top technology universities and polytechnics and to science and aeronautical support for education, people’s museums and exhibitions? The Air Force should involve ministries of education, technology and the sciences.
So we need UNESCO and Gordon Brown to repeat what ASUU and all Education NGOs and unions and student bodies have been saying for 40 years, before government will listen at all levels? Gordon Brown offers more money to empower wayward corrupt governments; the same governments happily divert to corruption or other projects considered more important than children’s welfare and education. Again foreign money, like DFID’s, will help bail out corrupt Nigerian leadership. The less aid we get, the more Nigerian money will be spent correctly. Aid should be in the form of software, short stay, 1-3month scholarships and equipment.
Another 23 killed at a collapsed bridge in Katsina. No different from the thousands killed in the North this year by cow-farm violence, ‘no western book’ violence, kidnap and vehicle violence etc. Sorry, as you grieve, but look at the picture of the bridge disaster. Increasingly in the North, when we see pictures of collapsed roads, railways and bridges we see red laterite earth sometimes 20 feet deep but we see no stones, boulders, cement or iron rods supporting the laterite road. So once again the contractor, the supervising engineers, the ministries of works and finance must answer questions of culpability in these and other deaths. Rains sweep away weak, un-reinforced infrastructure. Who under-planned, under-budgeted, under-built the bridge and under-built the coupling to the immediate access structures which were dislocated from the bridge? Who has the names on the signatures on the documents? The COREN and the Nigerian Society of Civil Engineers and NGO civil rights groups need to do evaluation and soil checks just as forensic investigation is done with an air crash. Was the bridge poorly constructed for the expected rainfall?
CBN boasts that Nigeria has the second highest African reserves. This is being economical with the truth or using creative financial accounting procedures. Did he tell you the population to funds ratio in the other countries ahead of Nigeria? Nigerians are being slapped and punched repeatedly.
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