A draw back in Abuja
Other endearing places are its parks and gardens, which the children love so much, particularly at public holidays and weekends where they go to, as it were, simply be children and play away with so much abandon. The parks and gardens are a later creation, almost like an after –thought. It was as if the […]
Other endearing places are its parks and gardens, which the children love so much, particularly at public holidays and weekends where they go to, as it were, simply be children and play away with so much abandon. The parks and gardens are a later creation, almost like an after –thought. It was as if the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA) had thought a city was made of merely rows of concrete buildings on every patch of land with no space for greenery. But when residents began to desert the city during weekends in search of places to unwind and recreate, it dawned on the FCDA authorities that the city indeed needs a place where people can go to simply watch the time go by. This was necessary for the city not to be known only as a place for work but also as a place for leisure. Yes leisure, after all, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, says an aphorism.
Still and I think most residents would agree, the city is suffering from a huge drawback. I am referring here to the difficulty commuters face, which include almost everybody– as they come and go out of the city. You see, it just so happened that in Abuja today rent has become so prohibitive that almost everyone now lives in the so called satellite towns- namely Kubwa, Gwagwalada, Bwari, Kuje and Kwali. Others include Mararaba, Nyanya and other huge conurbations on the road to Keffi. As one resident pointed out to me the influx into these places has also caused housing to become anathema, as rent has also started to go up in leap and bounds.
And so, the number of people that literally jam the roads that take people into the Abuja city in the mornings when workers are going in to resume work and at closing time when they close and are going home is so huge that it is a wonder anyone gets to get to work in good time to get any good work done at all or get home early enough to get a good sleep before embarking on another journey back to work. At peak periods, which are between 5.30-9.00am and 4.00 pm -8.00pm, the vehicles laboriously inch their way as they grind slowly to their destinations. The situation, as everyone whether or not he lives in the satellite towns knows, is worsened by the unending road constructions going on both on the Airport road, on one hand and the Kubwa road on the other, which have made plying those roads a veritably risky venture.
Motorists have to be perpetually on the watch out for diversions and this precludes any speeding at all as any attempt would surely lead to an untoward outcome. Many times unsuspecting motorists have regretted a sudden momentary revelry or absent mindedness which has caused their vehicles to run headlong into concrete obstructions planted by road workers. The lucky ones climb out of the ruined vehicles without any harm done to them, others not so lucky have to contend not only with mangled cars but also broken bodies.
A few times that I have been caught in these snarl ups. They have been an education into the psychology of the average motorist. No one needs to be told that in a “go-slow” situation a high degree of orderliness and patience is needed, but most times the opposite happens. As soon as something like a hold- up ensues, sometimes caused by a bus or a taxi stopping to allow a passenger to disembark, other commuter buses and taxis see it as a cue to push their way forward through whatever space they could find. Usually they embark on the route for the oncoming traffic which results into impeding free flowing traffic on the lane and eventually everyone on both lanes comes unstuck. Soon anarchy is let loose as struggle for the right of way lead to broken head lights and/or rear lights, dented bumpers and booths and smashed car windows.
Then something like an elemental struggle to claim rights and apportion blame erupts in order to ascertain who would take the responsibility to repair whose car. All this is done in laud expletives and accusations and counter accusations including the lurid detail of the antagonists experience in driving or any other thing for that matter and whether or not they are city or village bred. Rarely though does the situation degenerate into a fight, at least in my experience. Normally tired of the theatre of the absurd, others largely out of self interest soon intervene to put a stop to the mutual recriminations and the verbal pugilists are encouraged to let bygone be bygone.
At this point somehow some harried Policeman or Road Safety personnel would have sorted out the jam thereby freeing the traffic again to make it continue its slow, laborious and painful way to take everyone to his or her destination. Meanwhile Satellite town residents and others would have to endure this painful way of going and coming from work as long as the roads continue to be under perpetual construction, which judging by the nature of the whole work, it is not likely to be completed anytime soon.