The Nigeria Democratic Congress, NDC, presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has criticised the condition of Nigeria’s roads, saying a journey that should take about eight hours now takes nearly two days.
Obi made the remarks in a post shared on his official social media page while urging governments to prioritise the reconstruction and maintenance of existing roads instead of starting new projects.
He said a person who left Onitsha on Saturday night to take the first bus to Lagos on Sunday morning had still not arrived in Lagos by 8pm that day.
According to Obi, the person eventually arrived in Lagos at about 2pm on Monday.
“A journey that usually takes a maximum of 8 hours now takes nearly two days,” he said.
Obi said the problem goes beyond bad roads, noting that prolonged journeys lead to lost man-hours, stranded passengers, wasted fuel, damaged vehicles and delayed goods.
He added that businesses also lose millions of naira when poor road conditions disrupt movement and economic activities.
“Nigerians do not need new projects just for the headlines. We need functional roads that make life and economic activity possible,” Obi wrote.
He argued that the value of infrastructure should be measured by the number of lives and livelihoods it improves rather than the size of the project.
“A new Nigeria is POSSIBLE, and Nigeria will be OK,” he wrote.
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