Our Roads and the Act of Artful Dodging
I once heard this:
"A white man once observed that Nigerians are very happy people especially when they are travelling in automobiles because they are always dancing. The Nigerian with him laughed because he observed that the so-called dance was due to the pothole-ridden roads on which we are condemned to travel all the time."
I remember reading Soyinka's The Road (perhaps for which he was made the first Corp Marshall of the Federal Road Safety Corps by one of our intelligent leaders). I expected to see him talk about the roads as they are today, but he was more preoccupied with Say Tokyo Kid, the enigmatic motor-park Professor, and the metaphysical hocus-pocus of killing dogs on the road as sacrifice to Ogun.
From the days of Soyinka's The Road, to these days, our roads have received everything save improvement. They have become death-traps. We may not have accurate statistics, but our roads may have killed more people than air crashes, diseases and even Boko Haram put together have sent to the road of the great beyond.
The bad roads have taught us a number of lessons:
i. Our leasers are callous, insensitive and uncaring
ii. They are liars
iii. They are greedy
iv. They hate us in spite of their claims
and many more. It is only in Nigeria that things get worse as more money is poured into it!
Ultimately, we have become artful dodgers because driving through the roads teaches one how to dodge everything from potholes to hunger.
Happiest people, my foot! Artful dodgers due to no fault of theirs!
"A white man once observed that Nigerians are very happy people especially when they are travelling in automobiles because they are always dancing. The Nigerian with him laughed because he observed that the so-called dance was due to the pothole-ridden roads on which we are condemned to travel all the time."
I remember reading Soyinka's The Road (perhaps for which he was made the first Corp Marshall of the Federal Road Safety Corps by one of our intelligent leaders). I expected to see him talk about the roads as they are today, but he was more preoccupied with Say Tokyo Kid, the enigmatic motor-park Professor, and the metaphysical hocus-pocus of killing dogs on the road as sacrifice to Ogun.
From the days of Soyinka's The Road, to these days, our roads have received everything save improvement. They have become death-traps. We may not have accurate statistics, but our roads may have killed more people than air crashes, diseases and even Boko Haram put together have sent to the road of the great beyond.
The bad roads have taught us a number of lessons:
i. Our leasers are callous, insensitive and uncaring
ii. They are liars
iii. They are greedy
iv. They hate us in spite of their claims
and many more. It is only in Nigeria that things get worse as more money is poured into it!
Ultimately, we have become artful dodgers because driving through the roads teaches one how to dodge everything from potholes to hunger.
Happiest people, my foot! Artful dodgers due to no fault of theirs!
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