Onolomemen’s stolen highway

Others, depending on their locality nationwide may feel likewise, that some Federal property in the Minister’s care may have as well been stolen. And it is not a fairy tale or a fable. How is a road stolen? A road is stolen if for some inexplicable reason, a percentage of the road is done well, […]

Others, depending on their locality nationwide may feel likewise, that some Federal property in the Minister’s care may have as well been stolen. And it is not a fairy tale or a fable. How is a road stolen? A road is stolen if for some inexplicable reason, a percentage of the road is done well, leaving a whole portion abandoned. No one plans development like that, at least not in a country as rich as Nigeria. In that regard, the portion from Hong to Mararraban Mubi and Mubi itself is considered “stolen”. Ditto the portion from Cham past Lafia-Lamurde and Dangote’s Savannah Sugar Company near Numan and to Numan itself. By the same argument, I lament that the drain from my residence in Yola to the residence of former Governor of Gongola State Alhaji Sale Michika has been stolen. It does not make sense to construct a road and erect drains on only a portion. But I digress. Back to Onolememen’s stolen highways.
When we were children, we had danced to cheering songs of cross country drivers who had a reputation of reducing their journey time by rolling up portions of the highway and hanging it like a rope on a shoulder. If that could happen, then I have a feeling, two of my roads have been stolen.
Does Onolomemen know that much as President Goodluck Jonathan is going to get votes in Adamawa State for the credit of having refurbished Gombe-Yola and Yola-Mubi federal highways, portions of those two roads have been abandoned for the last ten years, and commuters on those roads could as well have said for the roads, they are using their voting power “negatively”! In these days, you could get a lot on a declaration of endorsement, and for these roads, I am certain the communities would do anything.
Gombe – Yola road has been refurbished from Kaltungo by Triacta, a construction company that has made a good job of the rehabilitation, but it is really not quite like so. Gombe – Kaltungo was merely patched up wherever there were disturbing potholes. Then the good road terminates suddenly in Cham which is where Triacta stopped work and packed their equipment and left the site.
Gombe – Yola road is the only highway linking Adamawa and Taraba States with Gombe, Bauchi, Jos, Kano, and Kaduna. All travelers to Abuja from that part of the North East need ply that route, and for the past four years, it was necessary to use that highway in order to link with Biu, Potiskum, and eventually Maiduguri in view of the terror attacks of the Boko Haram and the seizure of territories in the zone.
The same ploy is repeated on the Yola-Mubi highway. The portion from Yola to Gombi and Hong was refurbished and given good asphalt overlay. Then the road suddenly terminates in Hong, leaving completely dilapidated, the portion from Hong to Mararraban Mubi (Mubi Junction) and eventually Mubi.
Every time I found myself on those roads and especially in those portions, I asked myself what unthinkable development objective it was in abandoning a road project at a specific spot. Cham – Numan, and Hong – Mubi are strategic portions because they run right through territory whose communities have reasons to believe that they are being targeted and punished for a purpose. As much as I am not given to such mundane primordial thoughts, I cannot but find difficulty in convincing those who seek my opinion on the abandoned portions of the two highways, choosing to wonder instead, why political representatives from the area never made cases for completing those segments. Surely Senators of Members of the Houses of Representatives from Adamawa North, and Adamawa South should have championed the case roads to be finished appropriately. That State Governments could have intervened should not be considered, given the ignoble regimes that the State has had these past few years.
When the rain falls, it won’t fall on one man’s house, sang Bob Marley. Those roads serve a whole universal community. Not one particular tribe or religious group is disfavoured by the failure to service those roads. It needs no mention that traders, transporters, and the general Nigerian population ply those roads and the suffering of the people is universal. It is the only route plied by transporters of cement, textiles, and all other essential commodities from the ports and Ashaka, to that part of Nigeria.
There is also the road from Numan to Jalingo, which is Taraba State’s shortest link with Northern Nigeria. It is a mere 126 kilometres and part of the dream Trans African Highway from Calabar to Tripoli across the Sahara Desert. This short portion that on a normal run should take motorists one hour and ten minutes, takes more than four and a half hours. The road is so bad I certain portions that armed robbers take position even by day and harass motorists. It is a source of great concern because it is an important part of the North East West road linking the North East of Nigeria, to the entire southern part of the country. Taraba State prides itself as the food basket of the nation, with capacity to produce the national needs in livestock, grain, sugar, tea and coffee. This road has constituted a serious drawback for Taraba State, inhibiting growth because of the near impossibility of getting vital supplies into the State.
In this piece, I unashamedly canvass for attention to these three roads and suggest to Architect Onolomemen to double-check the Gombe – Yola road and may discover that the portion from Cham to Numan may have been “stolen”. Yola-Mubi could also reveal that Hong to Mararraban Mubi and on to Mubi itself has suffered the same fate – stolen. It must not be so. Is it good enough reason that I come from there?