A momentary digression, sir - Is the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) under your ministry? I suggest we rename the commission “Federal Road Carnage Commission” (FRCC) because it can’t be overseeing safety on our inherently unsafe roads. It is simply supervising carnage. As I write about diversions, I have to respectfully remember that there are no diversions when you’re flying abroad for inconsequential meetings paid for by taxpayers.
I’ll commend you again for the good road between Ondo and Ore. It was unexpectedly smooth by your abysmal standards. Maybe it’s not a federal road but it doesn’t matter - it was the best part of the journey because the single lane road was superior to your expressway. Why do I keep using the wrong word? I meant to say, hollow way not expressway.
As we approached Lagos, I noticed that the lanes facing Shagamu on the other side had been widened and resurfaced. Thank you, sir, for this miracle. May I ask when the contractors will complete work on the lanes facing Lagos? The project has been on long enough to enable conversion of the cleared portions to lorry parks. This leads me to another question. Are the trucks parked at various points on the hollow ways part of the infrastructure in your custody? This question is relevant because your ministry, the FRCC (as renamed), the police and state and local government officials seem powerless to relocate them. In the first phase of my nightmare, I met the trucks at Ogere, near Ibadan where I spent about forty minutes doing a five-minute journey. In phase three, I met them near Mowe on the way back to Lagos and at Ore junction travelling from Ondo. Please forgive my loss of memory – I keep forgetting that you wouldn’t know the situation because you don’t travel these routes and never receive any reports about them.
In case this is proving too long a letter for your reading comfort, I promise I’ll soon finish. (It’s the longest letter I’ve ever written). Yet, I have a few more paragraphs...
I don’t think you care (as is characteristic of most Nigerian leaders) so I don’t expect a response. I also don’t expect that you’ll do anything about the roads in your custody. Your predecessors over the years have done nothing. Why should you act differently? I also don’t think you’re accountable to anybody and I dare not suggest that you’ve contracted GPFS, the mental disease I described in one of my opening paragraphs. Mr. President doesn’t seem to be enforcing or implementing any point of his seven-point agenda. He certainly doesn’t hold his ministers accountable. Nevertheless, I must remind you that God is watching and will judge your stewardship. This is not a threat but a truth.
I have written about what I’ve experienced and what I deem wrong. If my prose seems satirical and cynical, that’s exactly what I intended and I make no apologies. However, it’s only proper that I suggest a few repair items. Four suggestions and I’ll conclude my letter:
1.    Get on the roads you’ve been put in charge of. Travel on them to know their state. Don’t just sit in your big office or at those lengthy, nocturnal no-action meetings in Abuja. How else can you feel the pain I’ve expressed in this letter or face the perils and frustrations that road users face every day? Prove to Nigerians that you’re not suffering from GPFS.
2.     Ask yourself and the people working with you what impact your ministry’s budget is having on the people you’re supposed to be serving. Introspection is useful even for the unwise, how much more for the wise.
3.    Don’t wait to be held accountable. Make yourself accountable and consider where your ministry fits into the seven-point agenda. Mr. President isn’t the Minister, you are!
4.    You don’t have to do everything but men like you who have been placed in positions of power can and should do something - something that will make a difference. It is the multiplied something of men that produces God’s everything on earth. It’s your something multiplied that will bring about everything we’re seeking for Nigeria.
I’ll close with a quote from The Book of Proverbs, chapter 29, verse 2: “With good men in authority, the people rejoice; but with the wicked in power, they groan”.
You can choose to be a good man in authority who will make the people rejoice. That’s my recommendation to you. Alternatively, you can be like the wicked in power and make people groan on the roads you’re in charge of. The nation’s 49th anniversary is here. Will we celebrate a jubilee of hollow ways or expressways? You can’t claim lack of opportunity because your time is now.
God bless you and God bless Nigeria.