So your friend or colleague has finally visited your village for one occasion or another...
He/she sees you the next day and jibes you on how impassable your roads are or how generally undeveloped your community appears.
You make excuses and wish the road contract awarded by the government several years ago had been completed.

Naturally, you will feel sad that your community does not compare with those of your friends in terms of good roads and other infrastructures.
Your make a mental note what must have caused the abandonment of the road construction that would have given your area a facelift.
Did the government deceive your people or could the contractor and and those who should be the eye of the government have conspired against your people.

Generally, I do not look down on underdeveloped communities because it is the government that has failed them....
By not spreading development efforts evenly throughout the land or ensuring that projects get completed.

Back to topic proper...
The number of failed/abandoned projects in Nigeria runs into thousands...
Many years ago, a national magazine - I think it was Tell Magazine- devoted an entire edition to "Abandoned Projects."
You will shed tears if you read it..I was able to lay hands on the photocopied version.

Each time a particular contract or project is not completed or is abandoned, the citizens in the affected areas suffer.
So who do blame for that project in your area that was left uncompleted....?
Do you blame the government, contractor, government supervisors, etc?

Five Model Secondary Schools were to be built in my state over 20 years ago, and one of the was to be built in my community.
The design and infrastructure was to excellent and of international standard.
The elders were all happy and gave a huge parcel of land enough for a college of education or polytechnic.
The contractor dug the foundations all over the place and that was the last work on the land.

My community had to task itself through levies and manual labour to see that the school took off though no longer as a model sec. School.
Later, it was gathered that the contractor dabbled into contest of traditional rulership and lost.
And he was not brought to book!

Right now, a particular road contract has survived two governors; the present one is the third.
The road used to be well maintained and swept through regular community effort.
Now, contractor's bulldozers have excavated the road that erosion has taken over and villagers pack their cars some 2 miles away and complete their trip on Okada.

I blame the governor for not putting an eye on a contract he awarded.
Unless of course he is part of the scam....
Some may say he cannot be everywhere, that he is busy and has people who work with him.

But if it takes the governor or the president to visit major contract sites once in a while to make sure money does not go down the drain, so be it.
Which is more difficult: to generate millions of Naira for a project or to pay a visit to a contract site?

How is it in your area?

Communities need to make effort to follow up contracts awarded to uplift their communities. It should not end up at flagging off the project but vigilance should be the keyword and with easy access to social media we can be uploading the progress of work regarding such projects thus making the contractors and the awarding government agencies know that they can not lie that the project is on-going if in truth nothing is going on there!

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Pavore9:
Communities need to make effort to follow up contracts awarded to uplift their communities. It should not end up at flagging off the project but vigilance should be the keyword and with easy access to social media we can be uploading the progress of work regarding such projects thus making the contractors and the awarding government agencies know that they can not lie that the project is on-going if in truth nothing is going on there!

You are right ...
It didn'teven occur to me that the social media could be a useful forum in this regard.
Thanks.