Benin City Nigeria – Civil Empowerment & Rule of Law Support Initiative (CERLSI) has called on the Buhari administration to draw a lesson from Vice President Osinbajo’s helicopter crash and declare a national federal road emergency, making it compulsory for all federal dilapidated roads to be fixed.
The organization, in a statement released on Saturday by its Deputy Executive Director, Bob MajiriOghene Etemiku, joined millions of Nigerians to rejoice with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo over his escape of death from helicopter crash that occurred on Saturday February 2, 2019 while he was on his way to campaign in Kogi state.
Etemiku said when high ranking government officials and other privileged ones in the country travel by air in Nigeria in order to avoid bad roads, they fail to realize the danger and agony the ordinary Nigerians go through every day, spending hours traveling on such dilapidated roads.
“CERLSI calls on the Nigerian government to declare a national emergency on all federal roads, and then go on to fix both the Benin-Auchi and Kogi-Lokoja Roads at once. Both these roads are a national embarrassment that Vice President Yemi Osinbajo’s miraculous survival has exposed. Nigerians have suffered enough on these dangerous roads,” Mr. Etemiku said.
“Government people are in the habit of abandoning Nigerians on the terribly bad roads. They hop on flights that take them to their respective destinations quickly. As they do this, they have no way of empathetically coming to terms with the fact that most Nigerians spend hours and hours on the roads, and are exposed to robbers and fatal accidents.
“We hope that today’s miracle is a wake-up call to the Nigerian government to fix the bad roads and save the lives of many Nigerians who do not have the privilege of commuting to and fro on a chopper,” Mr. Etemiku said.
The Benin Auchi-Road, he asserted, is another of such death traps. “It connects with the Kogi-Lokoja road as a key route for most Nigerians coming from the Southerly regions of Nigeria to the North.
“Nigerians who cannot afford to fly often spend countless hours trying to maneuver through thoroughfares and alleyways to get to their destinations. Some of these roads were constructed during the colonial era.”
Nigeria’s Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, escaped death on Saturday, along with the entire crew after his chopper helicopter crash landed in Kabba, Kogi State.
