THE CONFUSING NIGERIAN SCENARIO
In the midst of plenty, the people cannot eat, writes AUSTIN ISIKHUEMEN
I was in Uromi, my beloved hometown last weekend. Driving along the Ore-Benin highway, lined along the road, especially on the Benin-Ore side of the road, were palm frond sheds full of plantains of various sizes in various stages of ripening. I also saw men on motorcycles arriving from their farms with piles of plantains tettered to their bikes, delivering to women who sell by the roadside. I also saw a couple of Dyna mini-lorries loading plantains probably for delivery to big cities where sellers can get better bargains. Yes, it is plantain season.
I had to take Auchi road from Ramat Park. Luckily the mob that occupied the front of INEC office had vacated. I drove down to Ehor and detoured towards Ujogba to avoid the totally blocked, impassable federal road towards Iruekpen, late Stella Obasanjo’s hometown. I would have driven through Benin-Agbor-Asaba highway from Benin City but from Agbor Park/NNPC depot to the end of the city just before the descent to Okhuaihe, the federal road is also totally impassable, hence the rigmarole!
Having followed the Ujogba-Ebudin-Igueben-Uromi road, I was amazed at the quantum of foodstuff and crops on display. The newly harvested yams I saw covering all available space at Ebudin Ugbegun was stupendous. Even more amazing is that these yams are all harvested from the farms in that small town and environs using subsistence technics and tools.
At Uromi market, the largest in Edo State outside Benin City, foodstuff of various types, raw, processed, cooked were all on display. Massive tubers of yam, pawpaw, tomatoes, pepper, groundnuts, rice, beans, ikpakpa, olene, ihiehie, cassava, akpu, ugwu leaves, garden egg, pumpkin fruits, ukpokuma, maize, etc., all in abundance. All these in spite of the reduced farming activities due to massive kidnapping and insecurity that have kept farmers off the more distant farmlands with more fertile soils that give greater productivity.
At the same Uromi town, all roads leading to, and out of it, all federal roads, were in total state of disrepair. Agbor-Uromi road just before Dominion Hotel down to Nova Motel. The cattle market area is a hell on earth. So is the stretch from Angle 90 to Angle 80 (not sure where these angle names came from!) leading to Irrua to join the impassable Iruekpen-Ekpoma-Auchi nightmare of a federal road. These same roads make farming and trading logistics a nightmare for the people of these areas.
Discussing with folks resident here, the real issue at this time is not availability of food, though that may rear its heard when many of these crops are out of season. The biggest issue is poverty – lack of money to buy the available foodstuff whose prices have shot through the roof many times in the last one year. Unbearable inflation.
They said each time fuel price increase was announced, their purchasing power diminished and hunger quotient quadrupled! Some asked me if the petrol inside the grounds of Niger Delta is now exhausted. Others, more enlightened, asked me what the dollar exchange rate, a banknote they have never seen nor spent, could be responsible for their inability to buy a tuber of yam harvested in their neighbour’s farm. I struggled to provide answers I knew did not make sense to them. I can tell you that the name Tinubu, which some pronounced as Kurubu, got numerous angry mentions by these local countrymen. In the midst of plenty, the people cannot eat.
The same thoughts occupied my mind as I drove back to Lagos on the Benin-Sagamu dual-carriage way on 14th October 2024. From Benin till you got to the beginning of Ogun State, the federal road is fairly good. Mike Ononlememen had reconstructed the road from Benin to about 50 km after Ore. Babatunde Fashola then took over from him but in eight years, the road was not completed. Some sections were done, of course, but most of Ogun State is now worse than it was in 2015 and rapidly deteriorating. Some sections around Ovia river and Ofusu have become dangerous spots due to massive cement-carrying lorries whose overweight loads have created uneven surfaces due to uneven compression. Benin- Sapele-Warri federal road is one you better avoid at all cost.
These roads that lead to, and out of, the Niger Delta and the South-east are in this sorry state. Pray, what logic is driving the crazy speed with which the Coastal Road, which is going to pass through vastly uninhabited territory, is being constructed? Would it not make more sense to complete the reconstruction/repairs of Benin-Sagamu, Benin-Sapele-Warri and Benin-Auchi-Okene roads before embarking on the multi-billion dollar Coastal Road?
Why are these existing roads being abandoned to deteriorate further while embarking on new projects that give a false impression that we have no resource problem? Is that not the same impression that the purchase of a new fleet of hundreds of SUVs for national assembly members gives? Even the purchase of a new Presidential aircraft, yacht and VP residence upgrade with billions of naira.
So, why this scarcity in the midst of “plenty”? People cannot feed but food everywhere! No passable roads due to disrepair but new construction by the same agency of government. No security but thousands of armed policemen attached to household chores in palaces of the rich, the famous and even the notorious. New minimum wage yet to be implemented by many states but the increment wiped out by increases in fuel price and litigation costs by labour leaders accused of treason. The same illogic explains the apparent prowess of bandits over agencies that have constitutional right to the use of tools of violence. Tough times. Tough logic.
Isikhuemen writes from Lagos
