Guardian

SIR: I crave your permission to use your well-regarded newspaper to express my delight with the news that Osun State Government under the leadership of Governor Rauf Aregbesola has awarded the contract for the construction of a 30km-dual carriage way from Gbongan to Akoda in Ede. As a businessman resident in Osogbo, I travel nothing less than two times every week to Lagos. This simply presupposes that I can’t avoid the Gbongan-Akodo single-lane road. From my experience, it can be very uncomfortable navigating through the road, what with its narrowness and bumpy nature.

Therefore, it is a soothing relief that the state government has decided to put a permanent end to the nightmarish experiences of motorists on that road. By reaching the decision to expand the road, construct about four pedestrian bridges at Gbongan Junction; erect streetlights, road markings and signs; build culverts and ditches; and do landscaping with quality aesthetics, this government has yet again demonstrated its unparalleled attentiveness to the yearnings and collective wishes of the people who by votes engineered its existence. From the reports I read about the project, the State Government is just not contented with expanding the Gbongan-Akoda motorway, it is genuinely interested in doing it with strict compliance with standard practices such that the road can endure for another 30 years after construction.

The provision of viable road infrastructure and the accordance of quality periodic maintenance to it are very critical and inexorable to the actualisation of lasting and advantageous socio-economic advancement. This explains why I often get deeply horrified each time I travel on that highly portentous death path many occluded minds happily regard as Lagos/Ibadan Expressway. I get more particularly confounded when I hear the past and present leaders of Nigeria and their infantile poodles praise themselves for making life more comfortable for Nigerians when that major expressway remains an immoveable, lugubrious reference point of their starkest failings as leaders. If as important as that expressway is to Nigeria’s economic affairs, Nigerian leaders still find it intractable to repair and expand for our benefit, we don’t have to look for any other evidence of the incapability and hopelessness of the present ‘messiahs’ in Aso Rock to translate the vision of the oft-quoted transformation agenda into reality!

And while I applaud the State Government of Osun for this significant move, I encourage it to keep hoisted aloft the expansive banner of distinguishing governance.

• Gbenga Awodele,

Osogbo, Osun State.