For Nigerians who travel from the Eastern part of Nigeria, especially from Onitsha, Enugu Owerri, Delta, etc to the Western part of the country, particularly Lagos, another chapter of suffering has opened as the Benin bypass in Edo State has collapsed completely, making their travel a journey to hell.
Before now, these travellers' nightmare was the Berger-Kara-Mowe axis on Lagos-Ibadan Expressway which kept them on the road for four to five hours as they go to the West or return from the East. Now, that suffering has reduced significantly as the reconstruction of the expressway is largely completed.
The Benin Bypass which is dreadfully distressed at the moment is the new foe and so, for most travellers, Benin City is a nightmare. Motorists and travellers now endure harrowing experiences that last many hours as the potholes on the road have graduated to boreholes, causing terrible gridlock.
Though there are other highways that are in terrible state across the country including, Benin-Auchi Highway, Benin-Warri Expressway, Ibadan-Ilesha Expressway, Abuja-Lokoja Expressway, Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway, Calabar-Itu Road, and Obollo Afor-Makurdi Road, the Benin bypass is ahead in every respect as a major highway to hell.
Besides trailers and other heavy duty vehicles many of which are stuck in the cascading mud formed by the deepening 'boreholes' on the road, there are many other commercial buses with frustrated-looking passengers that are held up on the road for hours everyday.
"Benin is a nightmare; there is no road here. I wonder what Edo state government and the federal government are doing about the suffering on this road. This is 3pm and we are still in Benin when we left Lagos as early as 6.30am. I am afraid we may not get to Onitsha before nightfall and I am heading to Owerri," Daniel Alado, a Lagos resident going to the East, told BusinessDay on phone.
Alado said he could not get to Owerri that day as he had to sleep over at Onitsha and continued his journey the next day, wasting his time and at the same time incurring extra cost on hotel room and feeding.
Stella Ezike, another traveler from Lagos to the East, recounted an ugly experience, saying that in order to avoid the collapsed bypass, their driver had to take inner roads which did not only prolong their journey, but also exposed them to avoidable risks as their vehicle broke down in the middle of a forest.
"Going to the East or returning from there has become something else. It now takes two days to travel from Lagos to the East because before you reach Onitsha it is already night and to continue the journey does not make sense security-wise," Ezike said when she spoke with BusinessDay.
Businessmen, who are on the road every other day seem to be the worst hit. According to Emmanuel Okechukwu, an Onitsha-based businessman who comes to Lagos to buy his goods, going to or coming back from Lagos is not an experience to share on a good day..
"Before now, you could leave Onitsha by 10pm in a night bus and by 4am you are in Lagos. You have little time to sleep before going to the market to buy your goods. By night, you are on your way and latest by 5am you are in Onitsha. That does not happen anymore.
Sometimes, if you travel by night from Lagos, the earliest you can get to Onitsha is 12noon. By that time, you are already exhausted and there's nothing you can do again that day. That's the reality of travelling to Lagos today. We lose time and also lose money. The whole thing affects us badly," Okechukwu lamented.
For Benin residents and businesses operating within that axis, it is almost a dead end for them as they are literally trapped in their own domain. In a trending video recorded by one of the locals, the people are deeply disappointed with the federal government which appears to have turned a blind eye to the suffering on the road.
The local however pleaded with both the state and federal governments to do something about the road and save the people and their businesses the present agony of a collapsed road that is not passable even on foot..
It was reported recently that Dave Umahi, the Minister of Works, took a tour of some federal roads, across the country, shortly after he was appointed. The report says that the minister did not like what he saw and lamented that, in spite of the whooping N14 trillion debts inherited by the current government, the roads have remained an eye-sore.
But Nigerians want the minister to move beyond lamentation to concrete action, especially on Benin Bypass and others like it
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