“Picking That Trash” at Obigbo in Rivers State

During the “Let the Fire Fall” crusade held in January this year by the RCCG, the church launched a cleanup campaign titled “Pick that Trash”. It was a campaign to awaken the consciousness of the people of the need to keep their environment clean. The head of RCCG, Pastor Adeboye was present in that meeting, so was the Governor of the state (Rivers State). Initially, my political mind raced ahead, sensing the kind of trouble such launch can cause in the mind of a politician going by such caption. I was relieved when the governor reacted positively, embracing the campaign and pledging to support it as he referred to the fact that the campaign is an informal channel that will compliment the efforts of the government who are engaged in the formal campaign. A lot of people may trivialize what happened that day but my sensitive mind understood that another selfish politician may have seen that campaign in another light such as a vote of no confidence in the state’s ability to manage its waste and hence, may respond with a pushback. Thank God for the matured mind of Governor Wike, who is able to take feedback, a known food for champions.

I expected that “Picking of Trash” to have started from Obigbo, a boundary town with Abia state. However that did not happen; hence my disappointment with the campaign thus far. In the past one month I have passed the place twice and each time, my mind gets agitated at the eyesore of a town so close to the Garden City. At my first visit, I compared the piles of dirt at Obigbo with what obtains in Aba, Abia state which I awarded the dirtiest city in Africa five years back. I felt Obigbo was competing to take over that title until I got to Aba and realized that “Ihenaebe kana ebe” (same same, nothing has changed). “What kind of people are we?” I asked myself.

After my first passage through the road this month, I changed my mind on writing about this, seeing some form of work that was ongoing at Obigbo. A large amount of white sand poured, of about hundred meters wide on the middle portion of the road. I did not know what to make out of the work. Is there a reconstruction of the road in progress? If there is, who is doing it? Why start by pouring sand in the middle of the road instead of the work starting from the road itself. I had no idea but rested in the belief that at least “picking of trash” had started in Obigbo at last. A month down the line, the status quo remained to my surprise and more agitation about the present state of that environment. I cried out on facebook immediately I came back from the trip.

I shared a video of the solid concrete road I saw at Okposi, a remote town in Ebonyi state which I hear is close to where the governor, Umahi hails from. I also shared another close to Eleme junction just after Obigbo, a distance of about two kilometres from the centre of Port Harcourt city. I was so impressed with the concrete road at Okposi that I had to take a video. I had the understanding that such roads last more than our normal coal tar roads and have seen major massive roads built with it like in Houston, Texas. It felt so good that someone was emulating one of the best practices from around the world.

Some responders could connect with the wonders of this embarrassment so close to the Oil city centre. Some others had some pushback and fused some semblance of Nigerian blame-game politics into it. An argument that the Obigbo road belonged to the federal government ensued, insisting that the governor has done massively well and so should be left out of it, and the federal government of Amaechi should be called upon to do their job. To me, that would have been a sound point if taken in the context that the road will be used by Amaechi and Buhari. A question I did not ask my friends was, “so where did the federal road portion stop?”Is it not the same road that drives right into the mile one park, passing through garrison where the state government has reconstructed into a round about?

Obigbo is a major town that must not be taken for granted by both federal and state governments. If Governor Wike were to be an indigene of Obigbo, I can attest that he would have fixed that road by now and sort out the refund with the federal government later, just as Amaechi did on the Owerri road boundary with Imo state, possibly because he is from that area. Obigbo hosts major national assets (Afam gas power plant, oil and gas fields) that are contributing to the development of Rivers State and Nigeria at large. It deserves a better deal. It links PortHarcourt to Aba where ninety percent of the goods consumed in Rivers state come from. Obigbo is not insignificant in the scheme of things.

It is surprising and I keep saying that all the major federal routes to Rivers state are in shambles when compared to other states. I believe it is a matter of criminal negligence for Rivers state federal roads to be neglected for so long. PortHarcourt to Yenegoa axis is same bad story, likewise is the Eleme to Uyo exit, while the worst is the Abia angle with Obigbo been the bad spot.

Rivers state deserves a better deal from the Federal and state governments. Given that Amaechi is a son of the soil, and the Minister of Transport with the Minister of Works as his close friend, he must do something different this time. Whichever way they want to frame it (federal or state responsibility, my village or your village, my people or your people), Wike and Amaechi have to work together to liberate Obigbo town. When two elephants fight, the ground suffers. Obigbo people and every other Nigerian that use that road have suffered enough.

Obidike Peter wrote from www.peterobidike.com and p_obidike@yahoo.com