By Festus Akanbi
Once Bitten, Forever Bruised: The Apprehension of Akute-Lambe-Agbado Residents Over Another Political Promise
The residents of Akute-Lambe-Agbado have heard it all before—sweet words dressed in political poetry, promises rolled out like royal carpets, only to disintegrate into dust under the weight of time. Theirs is a community where hope has been betrayed so many times, it now limps on crutches of skepticism.
Once upon a time, it was Governor Ibikunle Amosun who stood like a messiah on the podium, thundering about transformation and development.
Bulldozers roared to life, raising clouds of dust and expectations. But those machines became monuments of deceit—parked and abandoned, rusting under rain and sun, like the trust of the people.
The roads were torn open like wounds, and then left to fester. What was promised as reconstruction turned into destruction. Years have passed, and the gashes in the earth still gape wide, swallowing vehicles, livelihoods, and dreams.
So when the current governor now speaks of reconstructing the road, the people of Akute-Lambe-Agbado do not clap. They look at him with eyes hardened by betrayal, with hearts wrapped in the bandages of past disappointment.
Their applause has died in the silence of abandoned sites and unfinished projects. Their patience has worn thin like the tires shredded by potholes turned craters. Their faith is a flicker struggling against the howling winds of broken promises.
They remember the rains—how they turn the roads to rivers and the streets to swamps. They remember the pregnant women stuck in traffic for hours, the schoolchildren trekking through mud like exiles. They remember the sick, the aged, the desperate—all forced to navigate hellish terrain while politicians ride in convoys on tarred avenues elsewhere.
Now, they wait—not with hope, but with heavy hearts. They wait to see if these new words will become works or just another addition to the graveyard of promises that litter their history. The ghost of Amosun’s abandoned project still haunts the soil. And until the asphalt touches the ground and the roads are reborn, the people will not be fooled again.
They have learned that in Akute-Lambe-Agbado, the road to disappointment is always freshly graded.
The timeline of the project has begun…
… Akanbi is a Lagos based journalist.
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