Life in Nigeria is fun and at the same time, it's not fun at all. But all in all, we are blessed and surviving no matter how hard it looks. Every other country in the world also faces one of the challenges just that we might not know or see them unless we were told or experienced them first hand.
I was in a conversation with my brother a few days ago, and our discussion tilted toward the newly developed electric cars. We both smiled after we thought about how possible it would be in Nigeria. The bad roads are one of the major problems Nigeria is facing.
We can't even have some cars driven on some Nigerian roads. If those cars have their bodies too shallow then it’s a problem. But when you are talking about jeeps and other highlanders then they can have a nice time on Nigerian roads.
My mum traveled a few days ago, she called me in the morning when she was about to journey back home. Normally, the journey should not last up to two hours before she arrives home. But when I called her in the afternoon she told me she was still in the vehicle home.
When she arrived was when she started ranting about her experience with the bad roads, the potholes were still fair enough but there was a part of the road that got damaged and waterlogged. So for cars to cross it there would be fear. That must have caused a long traffic jam and slowed her journey from an hour plus to over six hours.
If it were to be a country with good governance, I thought the Ministry for Works and Transport should have done something about it. But no. They don't care.
That's one major problem we have about public transportation. Sometimes you see some people leave their cars at home to take public buses to wherever they are going. This is not because they have a faulty car, but because they are trying to avoid the bad roads and the damage it might cause to their vehicles which might even go beyond repair.
In this case, how would public transporters cope with their damaged vehicles since they have to pass that same route most personal drivers have been avoiding? They would be left with no choice but to charge additional fares to cover up for unexpected damage they might encounter while driving.
Only if the roads were good then most people would ride on their cars, motorcycles, bicycles, and trek. There was a place I traveled to. I was going to a community then I told the tricycle driver about the area. He responded that I couldn't get any tricycle going there directly unless he dropped me at the “border”.
Out of curiosity, I asked him to take me so I could get another tricycle to where I was going. I thought the border was some kind of boundary between two communities. But when I alighted I realized the border was just a big pothole filled with stagnant water that could sink up half the tricycle.
So at that juncture, everyone drops and then crosses over to the other side to continue their journey. At times some drivers even get to experience theft attacks and kidnappings where there are faulty roads.
I hope someday the government gets to keep its promises and give us good roads so we can have a peaceful transportation system.
This is my response to the HIVE LEARNERS weekly prompt in hive learners community for the Week 128 Edition 1 and the topic to be discussed is PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION
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