If the ritual of every Wednesday Federal Executive Council meeting is important to the attendants who dress in resplendent attires to participate, to members of the public who bear the brunt of their inaction they are merely deluding themselves. Unlike before when Nigerians look up with anticipation to some of the decisions that would improve their welfare, these days it is no longer the same for they now know that those who attend do so to serve their narrow and selfish interest—not theirs. There is nowhere else that opinion can be proven than the acute and prolong stage of rot and bestial nature of the Abuja-Lokoja highway. Six years into the life of this administration the savage state of that road has thrown up moral questions about the anthropological and ethnologic nature of leaders and our society. Anthropology is the study of humanity, culture and how we develop; while ethnology is the branch of the former that compares and analyses the characteristics of those who preside over our affairs and relationship with their given assignments. The brutal nature of the Abuja-Lokoja highway, the bestiality—resembling the form of a beast shows our depravity, debased form of existence as humans; it is lacking in reason and intelligence why anyone– least of all—the government of the nation—would allow that terrible inhuman conditions to persist; it makes little sense; what more, the daily cries, horror and grief for government intervention has continued to fall on deaf ears as if to say those in charge are wild, untamed if not atavistic in humour! Truly, there is no rational reason –six years on being called the minister for works—for that road to remain in that darkened and horrific state; one of the trapped passengers would only see the mean characteristics of an animal in nature, instinct and action on whoever is in charge of fixing the road and but left it to haunt them. “Every year they make a budget; they boast of awarding this and that, yet this is what we get”, said Abdul Rauf a passenger trapped last Wednesday in the horrific gridlock. “As a minister of works, you are supposed to have goals and objective”, he continued “what then is the goal of this current minister of works? Is it that he has no idea of what is happening?” asked Abdul Rauf, who went on to express dismay that upon the suffering souls who ply that death trap of a road, whoever is the minister for works could still find sleep! Not only Abuja-Lokoja highway has been abandoned but the Okpella-Okene road as well. That hideous road has become the bastion and haven for kidnappers and highway robbers so much that travellers say their last prayers before embarking on any journey. “The truth is that this government has long gone to sleep”, stated Illyasu Usman. “It is a shame that in 2020, Nigerians could still find themselves in this torrid state of insanity”, he remarked. No one knows when or if that road would ever be repaired, but those in government –especially the minister for works—are making Nigerians believe that they have been taken for a ride—and a dirty one for that matter.
