BAD ROADS IN OGUN STATE ARE A FAILURE OF GOVERNANCE
For Well-funded and Democratically Controlled Public Works
The residents of the communities and commuters along the Ogun State axis of the Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway have continued to bear the socio-economic consequences of the poor state of the road which the successive governments have continuously failed to fix.
By Mayowa Onabule
The supposed expressway has been long overdue for a thorough rehabilitation or reconstruction. Due to the bad state of the road and high cost of transportation, many people of Ogun state who work or own businesses in Lagos State spend night in their various offices or workplaces and only return home on weekends. Many workers have lost their jobs for not being able to meet up with work-hour schedule due to horrific traffic. Every journey now requires much more time to accomplish, with associated loss of manhours and psychological trauma. The fact that Ogun state is one of the biggest industrial hubs in Nigeria today has not even motivated the irresponsible government to take seriously the need to fix the road.
Worse still, the state has very terrible road networks, something that makes living miserable and business unprofitable. So apart from Lagos Abeokuta Expressway, many other roads across the state are in bad shape and they include Toll-Gate, Sango-Ota, Alagbole-Ajuwon, Akute, Olambe, Mowe/Ofada, Ikangba-Agoro road, Sango-Ota-Idiroko Road, etc.
Some of the people living on the flood-prone areas embark on self-exile away from their apartments during the wet season. Some always add stones and blocks to fence off their houses from flooding largely caused by poor drainage system. A cloudy atmosphere is a dreadful sight to many of them because of the havoc that could follow.
Frantic efforts have been made several times to draw the attention of the Federal Government, and the Ogun State Government for more than 20 years through protests and campaigns but to no avail. A few roads that were paved are not maintained and left to rot while most roads are in a state of disrepair and decay. We call on the trade unions, civil society organisations and community people to sustain the agitation and continue to organize a series of protests.
Construction of road and other public projects is usually based on contact system which is riddled with massive corruption (inflated contracts, mismanagement of public finance, bribe-taking etc.,), making it more expensive and unsustainable. In other words, it is the contract system that usually accounts for poorly constructed projects and in some cases leading to abandoned projects. It is for this reason, we of the Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM) canvass for an end to this inherently corrupt contract system. In its place, we advocate for the setting up of public works departments, which must be adequately equipped with modern machineries, staffed with well remunerated and highly skilled workers and put under the democratic control of workers, community people and relevant professionals, for the execution of all pubic projects. We call on the trade unions, community organizations, civil society organisations and professional groups to support and fight for this arrangement.