NEWISSUES
By George Onmonya Daniel
When you see major contracts being awarded to dualise or build new roads by the federal government, the major roads that links the Middle Belt to the other parts of Nigeria that has been key to the economic development of the people of the area have been simply ignored over the years.
The road from Maiduguri to Potiskum, passing through Bauchi, Jos, Agwanga, Lafia, Makurdi to Otukpo, then Nsukka and into Enugu, is a very important road, used to the major road linking Eastern Nigeria to the Middle Belt and the North, but today it is complete ruin.
(OTUKPO ENUGU ROAD)
The road from Plateau State to Abuja has become worse and worse over the years that it has become not motorable, likewise roads around Kafancha that links people from Abuja to Southern Kaduna, Nassarawa, to other places has been in terrible and dangerous conditions.
When roads infrastructures are terrible around Nigeria, the Middle Belt has been the most ignored in terms of federal government investments on roads over the years.
The major focus of the federal government has been roads that link Kano to Abuja and Abuja to Lagos. It is like the people of the Middle Belt have no representatives in the National Assembly who would lobby the government to fix these important economic roads. Even the road from Abuja to Minna has been in a terrible state. The same Minna where two of their sons were president of Nigeria.
Recently, Pastor Sarah of Family Worship Centre, Abuja, would use her pulpit to address the state of the road in Kafancha and the road to Jos. No politician took it up from where she stopped to magnify that voice.
The roads in the Middle Belt cut across Agrarian communities, and we have seen small villages turn to big villages because of roads as they become terminus. Big markets spring up here and there because of roads. The federal government should do more in fixing federal roads, it will improve the economy more than palliative.
