Welcome To Delta State: Visiting The King In Ughelli ? Kindly Mind the Community’s Beloved Potholes
The Oasis Reporters
July 28, 2022
By Greg Abolo
@gregabolo
Right from the days of James Onanefe Ibori, former governor of Oil rich Delta State, citizens there saw a lot of groundbreaking, literally speaking, Infrastructural foundations which developed, thus laying the foundation for a better Delta.
“Delta under Ibori and Uduaghan was a delight. Good roads made everyone of us proud”, said Philip Tuedor, a trader in Igbudu market told our correspondent in the state.
With good infrastructure, the state grew in leaps and bounds, and soon, all the roads started caving in to the sheer pressure of human population explosion.
Worse thing, with the decline of allocations from the Federal Government, maintaining the roads have thus become a greater challenge and for a medium sized town like Ughelli, the trauma seems much worse.
Take the only link road out of Ughelli for instance, into the hinterland local governments of Ndokwa, Isoko and Ijaw.
The pains are better imagined than lived.
Weekends have become traumatic, getting into Ughelli or out of it due to large vehicular traffic. Just Imagine vehicles clogging the way for travellers navigating how to plot diverse routes into Isoko land, Ndokwa land or Ijaw land, on only one major trunk road and the only side road to the interior.
Another issue facing Ughelli is the lack of infrastructural renewal. The roads are decaying due to the nature of the Delta terrain and the inability to construct roads to the standard that used to occur up till the gubernatorial tenure of late Professor Ambrose Alli (governor of the old Bendel state), 1979-1983.
Consider the solid Warri-Sapele road up to Enerhen junction, Main market, Igbudu road that was constructed by the government of Professor Ambrose Alli in the early 1980s.
Till date, the road has no potholes, thus relieving the Delta State government of the need to resurface the road. Imagine, 40 years after, the road still needs virtually no maintenance.
Do they still make roads like that?
Then go to the popular Uduerhe Road, besides the Ovie of Ughelli’s palace. How respectful is it to have the road looking so bad ?
It shows that Kings in Delta State reign without radiance, something unheard of, even in the palaces of little Fulani emirs in the south where they reign in concentrated northern communities.
A creative model that embraces Communities, industry and governments need to be found to collaborate on constant roads maintenance.
Photos credit :
Okpare Theophilus Onojeghen
Written by Greg Abolo.
gregabolo@gmail.com
