Member Federal House of Reps, representing Ede North/Ede South/Egbedore/Ejigbo Federal Constituency, Bamidele Salam has challenged the Honourable Minister for Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola and other relevant stakeholders to travel by road only for the next 90 days across the federation.
Salam made this challenge while responding to an earlier statement credited to Mr. Fashola, where he was quoted as saying “…the roads are not as bad as they are often portrayed. I know that this is going to be your headline, but the roads are not that bad.”
In his response to the statement credited to the Minister, Salam said “I found this statement, which had been repeated by the Hon Minister at least on two previous occasions as a clear indication that some of us in public offices are not at all in tune with the horrendous realities of our fellow citizens’ daily experience.”
According to him, appreciating what Nigerians go through on our bad roads daily, requires that public office holders put themselves in the shoes of the average Nigerian and get a firsthand experience of how Nigerians survive on a daily basis.
Salam called on Mr. Fashola and every relevant stakeholder to use these Nigerian roads for a reasonable length of time to understand the yearnings of Nigerians. He said, “As a Member of the House of Representatives Committee on Works, I will be throwing a road travel challenge to the Hon Minister and all Persons concerned to avoid air travel for all local trips in the next 90 days.”
“If we will agree to this challenge, we may come back with a better appreciation of the true state of our road infrastructure and the desperate things we need to do to save our economy from further disruptions as a result of the burgeoning crisis in the road transportation sector”, he concluded.
Nigerians from different areas of the country have in recent times been calling on all arms of government to urgently address the issue of collapsing road infrastructure in the country as it is impeding their economic activities.
This 90-days Road Travel Challenge raised by a Member of the House of Representatives will hopefully elicit reactions from relevant stakeholders while Nigerians hope to get some succor in the coming days.
I love his logic