Nothing best defines suffering than when plying Ogun State roads Ifo Local Government Area (LGA) , Moving in and out of the area on a daily basis has become an unwarranted punishment and its best described as “HELL”
Everyday, Citizens of Ogun State groan under dilapidated roads littered with crater-sized potholes and gullies. Anybody who is just coming to the state for the first time would think that it just came out from a civil war. But this is not the case. For many, it is simply a case of bad governance or poor leadership or both. It does not matter how big and expensive your car or vehicle is, it can’t stand the road challenge.
The problem of bad roads in the state has become an embarrassing stigma. In many parts of this state, normal interaction has been frustrated by bad roads. Vehicle owners are in distress as their vehicles are not used optimally. Moreover, the very many potholes and detours mean that vehicles keep breaking down so that on many of Ogun State roads emergency mechanics have sprung up to assist stranded commuters sometimes with disastrous consequences.
The people have cried out, once again, that many of the major roads in the area have become completely deplorable. They insist that their communities have suffered many decades of sheer abandonment by successive governments at the federal and state levels. Community leaders and other residents protested in the past, calling on the authorities to come to their aid, but their afflictions appear to have continued unabated.
They are, therefore, appealing to Governor Dapo Abiodun to quickly look into the hardship they face daily.
Without exaggeration, the challenges occasioned by the deplorable condition of roads in these communities are enormous, and the hardship faced by the residents on a daily basis is pathetic. The decay stares all in the face.
The residents are lamenting that accessing areas such as Agbado, Ope-Ilu, Oluwo, Itoki, Lemode, Abule, Robiyan, Muta, Ibaragun, Orudu, OgbaIyo, Arepo, Gas Line, Lisa, Adiyan, Giwa, Oke-Aro, Matogun, Osere, Lambe, Abule-Ekun, Tipper, Oniyanrin, Akute, Ajuwon, Alagbole, Ojodu and Crossing are being done in tears. Abule-Iroko, Robiyan, Denro Ishasi, Ojodu-Abiodun and Ishaga residents are not left out in the unmitigated anguish.
According to the aggrieved residents, virtually all the major roads in the area have become death traps. Every now and then, car owners end up taking their broken down vehicles to the mechanics for repair. Precious man-hours are lost on the road, even as commuters pay through their noses to get to their workplaces.
In and out of the rainy season, it has been years of tears, sorrow and pain on the axis. Many lives have been dispatched to the world beyond owing to the gullies that have, over the years, dotted most parts of the busy road. Many residents of the area, as well as visitors, have been maimed and killed, leaving others with indelible scars.
The dilapidated roads are said to affect more than 400 communities with over a million people. At the moment, business operations have collapsed, residents are leaving their property to neighbouring state, students cannot go to schools, most markets are closed down and motorcycle riders have become kings of the road.
Everyone living in this area seems afflicted with the double trouble of the bad roads that daily have the traffic crawling at a snail’s pace, and the menace of men of the underworld that capitalize in the situation to terrorise the residents.
Government, both present and the past, is being accused of neglecting this critical infrastructure, for as far back as in the last 20 years, causing the people to bear the brunt.
Residents of the commuters listed above have been in agony and pains over the years because of the abandoned road which had caused alots of damages to the residence. For many years, the road had been in deteriorating state which remains in terrible condition. It get worse every rainy season
