The journey of life, they say, is full of stories. It requires patience and careful observation to be able to notice the story and tell same well but a journey on Jebba-Ilorin road may not need much observation. The road itself traps people and draws onlookers’ empathy to the plights of its victims.
The travails of the road user commence as soon as he leaves the relatively benign potholes of Jebba North Local Government in Niger state for Jebba South Local Government in Kwara state. The hitherto preponderance of tarred parts of the road yields grounds for more un-tarred parts with wider and deeper potholes that are better appreciated by sloping in and out of them or swerving this way and that way among them rather than seeing them after a spell of five rainless days.
The dryness of the road save this reporter the agony of having to see the car he was travelling in bugged down by the marshy clay road. In the few instances that the car’s battery couldn’t start the car, we could easily push-start it. But the dryness of the road serves as another source of punishment for the victims. It ended up painting the air red with dust from the marshy clay on the roadside
The road’s lack of milestone compounds one’s problem, denying one the opportunity to have an idea of how long the ordeal that the journey has started turning into would last.
But just when one feels worse than this, a worse case pops up before you. A truck has fallen sideways, emptying its contents, crates of eggs and bags of flower. The truck had been trying to avoid an earlier trapped lorry. Two parallel bars from the beginning of its body had caught the edge of a pothole. This had held the body off the head of the truck, tearing the body toward the side its contents had swayed it to.
Dayyabu Ali, a conductor on the truck with temple veins raised out of fatigue, says the truck had taken to the pothole by the side trying to avoid a vehicle before getting derailed by the hole. About five hundred meters ahead of Dayyabu’s truck is another lorry that is getting its left rear hub changed.
One of its minders, Muhammad Falalu, attributes the N18,500 they spend on the hub to the state of the road. If the road were good, he says, the vehicle wouldn’t have broken down. Further down in Sabon Gida village a heavy-duty vehicle conveying coconuts from the south to the north lies sideways. It had also fallen while swaying this way and that way while trying to navigate the many undulating holes on the road.
Abba Sani who works with the driver said the truck conveying bags of coconuts lost it balance when it swayed into one of the holes, but couldn’t ‘come back.’ Drenched in dust and breathing heavily, Sani says, the injured, an old woman who broke her hand and a man who broke his leg, are in the hospital. Sani goes to the bush by the roadside cutting leaves to blanket the coconuts from sunlight to stop the sunlight’s damage to the produce. As he cuts the leaves, dusts that had settled on the leaves go up, colour the air and settle on and around him.
Asked how he will deal with the dust, he says, “I will have to bear with it. This is my fourth day without a bath. The problem is too much. Once you come into this road, just (pray) God to see you through. The other week, we spent four days here. Near that place (he points at a spot few meters behind) a tanker fell. We have come back. Our own too has fallen. We just have to thank God.”
Few kilometers to Bode Sa’adu, this reporter comes upon a phalanx of able-bodied men crushing stones and using them to fill the potholes on the road. Every now and then they hail passing vehicles, begging the drivers for money.
“We are helping people, and they are helping us,” said Muhammadu Aliyu, his balding head dripping sweats as he lazily raises and drops his sledgehammer by its wooden handle on his on the stones they are using to fill the potholes.
“If we are up to ten, we make up to N5,000, N4,500 or N6,000 to eat and fend for our families.,” says Usman Manu. “Our hope is when they want to tar the road, they should hire us. You see, we helped and help has come to us,” he says raising his hands as if he were carrying the sack they use in conveying the stones.
As Aliyu breaks the stones to use in paving the road, a truck driver they are hailing for money comes and makes a show of breaking the stones with them.
The driver, Auwalu Muhammed , says “I am a driver with BUA. And we take a lot of things. For example we take up to 45 tones. You see the way this road is. Some time when we take off, we are normally given deadline, days to spend to go a certain town. If you are going to Lagos from Kano on a three day deadline, you can spend four to five days on this road. For example you are given Kano for seven days, and you have a family, you cannot make it within four to five days on this road. You have to spend up ten days on this road because there is no road especially during rainy season like now.” He says to the government: ‘it should just help us.’
Few kilometers ahead I am in Bode Sa’adu, a town where layers of dust are visible on roofs of houses as well as human beings.
“The road is not good. It has a lot of holes. Thieves are robbing us. It is now with fear that we move on the road,” says Yusuf Akewulere with his face mask pushed behind his chin.
“It’s because of the bad shape of the road. If the road is good and the vehicles are moving well, who will dare put a log on the road or point a gun? It is because of the bad shape of the road. I myself have lost up to two relatives. Are we now increasing or decreasing. And its because of the state of the road. The worst part is from Jebba to Oloko. It is very bad. If you had come from Ilorin, look at how the road is from Oloko to this place (Bode Sa’adu) up to Jebba. This road is not good. The government should help us and rehabilitate it. A lot of lives are being lost here,” says Akewulere in Yoruba.
Asked why he uses face mask, he takes off his face mask juxtaposing it with his jumper with white strips. “Look at a white cloth that has turned red,” He says. “The thing that we use to cover nose because of dust look how it is,” he gestures with his stained facemask. “Is it a thing of joy to us?”
Another resident of Bode Sa’adu, Isiaka says “We are pleading with the government for the sake of God. This road is not good. Many of our vehicles have spoilt because of the road. Government should get us security. Thieves are not allowing us to rest on this road from Oloko to Jebba,” says the man with grey stubbles on the chin. “The robbers come and sometimes they would kill the driver. So, the government should help us rehabilitate the road.”
Driving further in Bode Sa’adu, this reporter saw a truck parked in the middle of the road its head tilted forward and its driver Ahmed Fatai sweating, smiling and moving around its head trying to start it. He says the truck’s engine went off in one of the traffics generated by the road. “We’ve not seen anybody to help push-start it,” he says.
At the outskirt of the Bode Sa’adu is another truck conveying bags of grains to South. It’s been there since its rear right rod broke the day before. The auto-mechanic repairing it, Abdulwasiu Panel, has just succeeded in removing the broken rod from the wheel’s hub.
“What happened is that the truck entered this pothole and its rode broke making aloud sound with it nearly falling sideways. This is our second day here. He (the mechanic) has been working on it since morning. It is now that dusk is approaching that he has been able to remove it,” says Halilu Hamza Babbanrami his eyes bloodshot. “But there is another problem, the other half of the broken rode will have to be removed. And this road is very problematic. If you come from Sokoto or from here Niger before you get out of Kwara state, it is difficult.
Few kilometers before Budo Amon town in Boro Local Government of Kwara state body of a lorry carrying steel to Kaduna from Lagos lies sideways, its contents by the side of the road. Its driver, Abdullahi Isa was trying to avoid a tanker that broke down in the middle of the road when he went into a pothole too sloppy for his lorry to maintain its balance. The body of his lorry got turned from the head beside the tanker. The tanker whose gear box fell is loaded with Premium Motor Spirit putting its self and Isa’s truck at risk of fire. The tanker had been on the spot three days before Isa’s lorry fell the day before this reporter interviewed the driver of the lorry.
“Now we are talking about welding back the body. We had thought our allowance would be enough for us. But now it might not be enough for us. We have not even settled with the welding technician about the price,” says Isa. He says he has been trying to cut down the 40,000 the driver is demanding. “Our plea to the government is to help us repair the road. We are the poor. We are the ones suffering. Now you will not see a governor going to Lagos through this road. You will not see a governor going to Kwara (Ilorin) through this road. And this is Kwara state.”
The bumpy ride continues for several kilometers up to Oloko nla where our car gets a brief taste of a tarred road. By this time dusk is well underway and this reporter is overwhelmed by fatigue and headache. The ride back to Jebba the next morning is equally tortuous though with less stops.
