₦airaland Forum

My Facebook readers know I
am not one of those
propagating the false
impression that Accra, or
Ghana as a whole, is Africa’s
new Eldorado – a place to
which you could relocate and
live a life devoid of confusion,
crime and noise you find in
Nigeria. I waste no time in
debunking the fallacious
notion that electricity here is
better than in Nigeria; that
roads here are better or that
even the people are less
corrupt. This is because I
know that stable electricity is
a mirage for most Ghanaians.
Just recently, Ghanaians held
large demonstrations in Accra
and Kumasi largely because
of poor electricity supply and
generally because of
discouraging economic
indices and reality. I have
also been caught in terrible
traffic hold-ups and heard of
muggings and other petty
crimes even in high-brow
neighborhoods such as the
Cantonment. And, of course, I
have witnessed Ghanaian
police extorting bribes from
motorists, as well as
Customs and Immigration
officers behaving like their
Nigerian counterparts.
But for a brief spell on
February 28, 2015, while
driving from Ibadan to Accra,
I couldn’t help but marvel at
the relative comfort and
safety the road from the town
of Afflao, Ghana’s border with
Togo, provided me. The 194
kilometers drive was the best
out of the total of 581
kilometers from Ibadan to
Accra. For most of that drive,
I caught myself doing an
average of 140 km/hr! That,
on a face-me-I-face-you road!
Until I entered Accra, there
was no section of the road
that had four lanes or more.
The Ghanaian government
did not make any pretensions
about building an
“Expressway” between
Ghana’s border and Togo.
But it maintained this N1
Highway such that, except for
the speed bumps that slowed
me down as I approached a
village, the road was devoid
of any pothole or gaping
craters like I found on the
Badagry – Seme section of
the trip. Every potential
danger on the road, like
bends or bumps or animal
crossings or bridges, was
clearly marked.
The drive from Mile 2 in
Lagos to the Seme border
with Benin Republic was the
second worst section of the
trip. Agreed, there were on-
going repairs between Mile 2
and Badagry and one can
blame the poor and unsafe
conditions of the road on
that, there is absolutely no
excuse for the condition of
the road from Badagry to
Seme. This road is the ONLY
reasonable road through
which every country located
west of Nigeria (Senegal,
Gambia, Ivory Coast, Ghana,
Togo and Benin) would enter
Nigeria’s economic hub city.
And it was in such a
deplorable state. You would
expect our country to make a
good first impression on
visitors. This was a sad road
to see if you were a West
African who had heard about
Nigeria being the “Giant of
Africa.” If you visited and
never went past Mile 2, you
would laugh at that
appellation.
But the worst section of my
trip was…you guessed it (!),
the Ibadan – Lagos
Expressway. It was the
section of the trip during
which my life was ever in
danger. True, sections of it
are under repairs. But the
combination of bad drivers,
lack of danger warning signs,
absence of key road signs,
complete darkness (I drove
through between 5:00 am
and 6:30 am on a Saturday
and everybody drove with
their high beams) with a host
of swaying, rickety, large
vehicles that didn’t have tail
lights or reflective markers,
made my 90 minutes on the
road the most stressful. By
the way, five months into my
Accra sojourn, I am yet to see
a vehicle without tail lights in
Ghana. In fact, reflective
stickers for the front and rear
are mandatory for your
vehicle and I am yet to see a
vehicle without them in all of
Ghana.
Yes, you can call me crazy
for daring to drive from
Ibadan to Accra (alone) when
I could easily have flown for
just 45 minutes. But I am not
crazy. It is the sort of thing
my wife and I love to do. It is
the sort of thing that, for me,
fulfills the essence of travel –
when you can control your
speed and your stops; when
you can do the sight-seeing
at your own pace, get to
know the land, appreciate
nature and the environment
and see different people up-
close and personal. We
routinely did the roundtrip
weekend 1,942 kilometers
drive from Los Angeles,
California to Sierra Vista,
Arizona, taking in the
beautiful view as the road
hugged the Pacific Ocean
from just south of Los
Alamitos to San Pedro (in
southern California) before
turning eastward to drive
through the desert into
Arizona. The sharp contrast
in vegetation and geography
always held our breadth,
negotiating hills and valleys;
going through mind-boggling
rock formations and
stupefying sand dunes. The
690 kilometers drive from
Kuwait City, Kuwait to
Baghdad, Iraq was only
similar in respect of the arid
desert and the burning heat.
Of course, the highways
leading in and out of Kuwait
were much better than those
of Iraq. But both were still
better than the Badagry –
Seme road.
It was piece of cake for me to
do the 756 kilometers drive
from Wiesbaden, Germany to
London, UK. I enjoyed the
adventure of driving from
Germany through Belgium,
The Netherlands and France,
putting my vehicle on either
the ferry or train at Calais in
France and riding across the
spectacular view and air of
the British Channel to Dover
in the UK, from where I
continued my drive into
London. I loved it so much
that I must have done those
Friday – Sunday trips about
twelve times in five years.
And what about the roundtrip
3,608 kilometers drive from
Wiesbaden to Naples, Italy! It
was a blast driving from
Germany through Austria into
Florence in Italy, down to
Rome and then on to Naples
and back.
These European and
American roads (and the few
over which I drove in the
Middle East while crossing
international borders), offered
me a more positive spin of
the respective countries than
what I found once I entered
the hearts of the countries.
For example, I was shocked
to find slum areas in Rome;
Rome - of all places; slums
inhabited by the dregs of
their society who were,
unfortunately, mostly of
African origin; slums in
communities of walking
distances from the Coliseum
and the Vatican! There are
neighborhoods in Seoul,
Daegu, Manila, Bangkok,
Pucket, Washington DC, Los
Angeles, New York and
Atlanta in which I would
never have been comfortable
living even on my first day
out of Nigeria. But the sights
and driving experiences from
the JFK International airport
in New York, or the Baltimore-
Washington International
Airport (BWI) or the Los
Angeles International Airport
(LAX), or Gimpo International
Airport in South Korea
welcome the visitor to
“heaven on earth.” It is clear
countries around the world
try to welcome visitors with
their best foot forward. The
drive from the Benin side of
the Seme border, all the way
to Cotonou, was a good
attempt at putting up a
positive image for Togo if you
were coming from east of
Benin (Nigeria or Cameroon)
and going just to Cotonou
and back. Togo is struggling
a bit with the highway
leading from Lome to Afflao
as a huge chunk of it is under
repairs and traffic was, in
fact, diverted through local,
dusty roads for about two
hours. But the road in and
out of Nigeria on the Benin
Republic side is just
unacceptable.
Most of the drive from Grand
Popo, near the Benin western
border with Togo, deep into
Togo all the way to Lome,
which is not too far from
Togo’s western border with
Ghana at Afflao, provided me
the resplendent Atlantic
Ocean view reminiscent of the
California Pacific Ocean view
mentioned above. In fact, for
a long stretch of the road, the
beach sands came up to the
very edge of the road. You
could easily see and smell the
vast ocean as it disappeared
into the horizon. You could
hear the roar of the waves. I
just imagined what Benin and
Togo could do with that vast
ocean view if their economies
could sustain five-star hotels
and other tourist attraction.
And if they spoke English
instead of French!
I was not surprised to find
that some Beninese people,
far from the border with
Nigeria, spoke fluent Yoruba.
But I was shocked to find that
at each of the three stops I
made in that country and led
the conversation in Yoruba or
Hausa, the Beninese people
responded in Yoruba! And in
Togo, I got two Hausa
speakers! We are blessed in
Africa with vast natural
resources but we lack the
human and technological
know-how to harness them.
And for this, our people
continue to languish in
unimaginable penury and
ignorance.
You don’t need to junket all
over Europe, Asia, the Middle
East or America to experience
nature in its serenity and
virginity. West Africa can
provide everything you need
if only we recognize what lies
beneath or around us. It
makes me wonder, at times,
what our ambassadors - our
delegates; discuss when they
attend those ECOWAS
conferences.
http://saharareporters.com/2015/03/01/ibadan-accra-road-abiodun-ladepo

All these trips and no pictures to show for it?

Pics? yur story don too much

isan:
Pics? yur story don too much

Guy already admitted he's crazy.

nwafuluozoh:
Guy already admitted he's crazy.

lmao