The Niger Bridge, South East Roads as Metaphor of Despair

The recent assurance by the Corp Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Dr. Boboye Oyeyemi that no commuter would pass the night on the River Niger Bridge in Asaba while travelling for the Christmas and New Year celebrations, is a welcome development that needs to be applauded.

Giving the assurance at a joint media briefing with the Governor of Delta State, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa, on traffic management in Delta State during the Christmas season, the Corps Marshal further made the remarkable statement that the activities of the Commission, during the period, would not be to indict road users but to ensure seamless passage of travellers to their destinations.

Oyeyemi’s assurances were in tandem with Governor Okowa’s disclosure that a special task force, headed by the indefatigable Secretary to the Government of Delta State, Hon. Patrick Ukah was already collaborating with the FRSC and the Anambra State Government, to give travellers a break from the drudgery and ordeals of the past.

For those unfamiliar with the nightmare previously suffered by commuters at the infamous Asaba and Onitsha ends of the Niger Bridge, the concerns and assurances of these highly placed public servants could be interpreted as the usual periodic posturing of government officials. In this case, it is not.

To start with, miffed by the untold hardship suffered by travellers at both the Niger Bridge and on roads in the South East, the House of Representatives had, in a resolution sequel to a motion by Hon. Obinna Chidoka representing Idemili North/South, asked the Inspector General of Police to dismantle all road blocks on South east Roads. The FRSC was asked to remove checkpoints on the Niger Head Bridge.

Similarly, various groups notably the Cultural Credibility Initiative had written to the Inspector General of Police, demanding the reduction of checkpoints in Igboland by 75 percent. In the letter titled “Re-Strangulation of Igboland with Checkpoints”, signed by the President and Secretary Chief A.G. Uwazurike and Steve Nwabuko respectively, the group condemned the number of checkpoints in the region, noting that the suffering of travellers was unbearable.

In fact, the True Vision correspondents who visited Onitsha and Asaba, last weekend reported the usual traffic snarl at the Niger Head Bridge and untold suffering by travellers between Owerri, the Imo State capital and Onitsha, the commercial nerve centre of Anambra State. Their experience, captured in our report: Tears, Pain, Humiliation and Extortion on South East Roads’ on page 30, is a story of man-made persecution, unwarranted profiling and unconscionable dehumanisation. It should not be so.

But, thankfully, reports from the Niger Bridge confirm that there has been a noticeable improvement in traffic flow, that security personnel were becoming more civil and that travellers had started breathing a sigh of relief from the torture of the past. Every right thinking Nigerian will feel relieved by these reports for a number of reasons.

To start with, citizens legitimately expect their governments to alleviate and not exacerbate their sufferings. This is particularly for people who, after passing through a difficult year, proceed to relax at home with their kith and kin, at the end of the year.

For another, for many people from the Eastern part of Nigeria, the spectacle of being subjected to demeaning security exposure in contrast to what obtains in other parts of the country erodes their confidence in government and attenuates their patriotism and sense of nation.

Furthermore, nothing can justify the needless profiling of young people most often, without any privileged report suggesting the likelihood of a breach of the peace. This is without prejudice to our acknowledgement that all governments have a duty to be alive to their oath of office. But to subject road users, in the south east, to dreary and dehumanising security ordeal when road users in places such as Kaduna-Abuja Road where travellers are daily stormed, kidnapped or killed by terrorists, euphemistically dubbed bandits, is one provocation too many and an invitation to chaos. That explains the suspicion, which could be misplaced, that there is a deliberate attempt to provoke people in the area into such violent reactions that could warrant their decimation. This is only a suspicion. It is the duty of the Government to allay the fears of people by redressing the anomalous situation that fuels this feeling.

Of course, there is also the need to put a stop to the frustrating milking of travellers by some unscrupulous security agents who, rather than provide a shoulder for travellers to lean on, turn such travellers into their milk cows. This is unfortunate for two reasons: demanding and receiving bribes while in uniform desecrates the authority of the state. Second, it erodes the sense of patriotism and nationhood of the victims who often transfer their misgivings to the state in various forms of aggression.

We must thank the Federal Road Safety Commission and the Delta and Anambra State Governments for their intervention towards redressing the age-long problem on the Niger Head Bridge. It is our fervent hope that this celebrated effort with not end up as mere tokenism, fit for the cameras to assuage those like the Ohanaeze Ndigbo and the Cultural Credibility Initiative that have stoutly put the sufferings of the people on the front burner of public discourse.

Much more importantly, our various security agencies should desist forthwith from conducting themselves in a manner that suggests that they are laying a siege on the people of the South East or that the people are being treated differently from other parts of the country. Rather than a frequent unprovoked show of force, security should concentrate on intelligence gathering for pre-emptive steps while the Government, yes, the Government, should take steps to mitigate those factors that make the people feel alienated from the rest of the country. That is not asking for too much, for the sake of peace.