No human being will drive through the Benin-Sapele-Warri section of the East-West Road, a federal highway that links the six South-South states without crying for the Niger Delta, and the country.
Even cows, goats, fowl, and other animals that traders convey in the several trucks from the northern part of the country that had broken down on the dilapidated road would protest the repulsion.
The segment from Benin City, the capital of Edo State to the oil city of Warri, the commercial nerve center of Delta State is strategically important because if it collapses, four other states- Bayelsa, Rivers, Akwa-Ibom, and Cross-Rivers States will be cut off. That is exactly the situation now.
The media have consistently drawn attention to the “death trap” that the ramshackle motorway has turned into for nearly two decades, while motorists, travelers, and other citizens have shouted themselves hoarse at the public embarrassment.
Many a time, an epic tragedy has to shatter the peace of the nation for the government to distinguish that things are not the way a privileged few running the country want others to perceive a situation from their tapered prism.
If not, how does one classify last Sunday’s falling-off of a petrol tanker on the endangered road, which led to the death of over 20 persons in a consequent detonation, despite the urgent appeals by monarchs, clerics, drivers, commuters, and traders to the government to fix the road, in the last few months? Ridiculously, the Nigerian government, and officials, often, live in denial and let citizens undergo pains before accepting a palpable reality.
On Wednesday, four days after the October 1 disaster when Saturday Vanguard visited the Ugbenu, where the fear of an epidemic loomed large, some villagers said they pulled out more dead bodies floating in the swampy water the previous day.
A sympathizer said: “We recovered more dead bodies from the swampy water on Tuesday. When the fire broke out, many of the victims attempted to escape through the swampy water without knowing its depth, and it trapped them. Some relatives buried the remains of their loved ones by the roadside, close to the scene of the incident.
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