A MASQUERADE CALLED OTUKPO-OTUKPA ROAD

By NBF News

A regular traveler to Otukpo or Markurdi, the Benue State capital en-route Otukpa, seat of Ogbadibo Local Government Area of Benue State would attest to the fact that the major road that links the country home of many who's who of the society is nothing but an ugly masquerade covered with rags to scare crying babies.

The baldheaded old road is in a terrible condition crying for attention like a munchkin deprived of breast milk. The poor road is weeping and wailing like an infant whose mother has been intercepted by the icy hand of death. Intruders, such as craters, gulley potholes are ruling the road. Infact the road is tired of endless playing drums for helpless indigenes, sedans and visitors to dance even while mourning.

From Otukpa to Otukpo, the ancestral home of Idoma kingdom; you'd be forced to dance along with your vehicle to no rhythm for close to four hours in the journey, which ought not to last for about one or 2 hours.

The ugly look of the road would keep one pondering whether the crème de la crèmes churned out by this agrarian community do ply the road or come in through the usual 'fly and land' system of transportation.

The road has literarily become another offspring of Benin-Ore road. It has joined the race of many other roads begging for government's attention across the federation. As you ply through the state, en-route Ugbokolo via Olanyega, if you are close to tears; you'll not help but unleash the water underneath your eyeballs for the pathetic state of the road.

For regular travelers, the thought of venturing on Otukpa-Otukpo road is the beginning of a journey into uncertainties, eternity or the easiest way of booking appointment with fate and grave, nay a way of bring money for nearby coffin makers.

The neglected road has remained a perpetual nightmare and daredevil to travelers as potholes and gulley erosion have taken charge of the road.

The movement of a snail is even faster than current work on the road, but in vain residents have cried for prompt response from the government.

During Harmarthan, it's a great battle between dust and humanity, while raining season marks a festival of tears and woes for commuters.

Many would wonder if the fault were from the Federal Government, Benue State Government or the contractors handling the project.

Like stooges imposed on innocent indigenes, the deplorable condition of roads in the country can best be described as an era of Armageddon for our people.

Here is the time, when a child will pick up a copy of the constitution and ask why we are still moving at this slow pace as a state and a nation. The time is here when we will say ''NO'', to the conventional ways of our leaders. The time is here for us to see that the rule of law as enshrined in our constitution is superior to all argument put up from a selfish angle. The time is here for us to redefine the rule of law as the supremacy of the law. We should all be ready to search diligently for our rule of law and our constitutional given rights that have been dragged out of the land in their Ghana- Must- Go. The time is here to call these chaffs 'history' and refer to us as 'now and the grain' lets stand up and join in this march for a change.

Poor Azikiwe, Awolowo, Balewa, Macaulay, Aper Aku and others who battled men and nature to give us freedom, now all what the next-in-line could offer is nothing. It makes one wonder with one hand akimbo and head bowed on how myopic leadership in Nigeria must have been, not to discover that many roads are graves dug to send well-meaning Nigerians to early eternity. I still dey laugh o!

•Comrade Godwin is the convener.