By Charles Okogene
After last Thursday’s downpour that flooded most roads in Delta State and even the novel rich Lekki in Lagos State, the picture below is the current state of the only road that links Adonte to other parts of the state especially Ogwashi-Uku, the headquartres of Aniocha South Local Government Area.
Okowa and Nwaoboshi, those that did not give Adonte road in their days. Above is the flooded road.
This is the most talked about Abah-Unor/Adonte Road, a two kilometers earth road that has never seen rehabilitation since creation; it is the only access road to Adonte whose indigenes/residents are mostly farmers that can contribute to the nation’s quest for food security. That is if something as an ordinary motorable road is provided by the government of the state headed by Rt. Hon. Sheriff Oborevwori or Pastor (Hon.) Jude Chukwunwike, the chairman of Aniocha South Local Government Area.
An attempt was made by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) in the era of former President Muhammadu Buhari to rehabilitate the road right from the Asaba/Ughelli Expressway to Abah-Unor to Adonte but after first phase of the two kilometers to Abah-Unor from the Expressway, the project was abandoned. That was when Senator Peter Nwaoboshi who was the senator representing Delta North Senatorial District, that Adonte happens to belong to, was the senate committee chairman on NDDC, today Nwaoboshi is now a yesterday politician and Senator Ned Nwoko that succeed him, is more busy with the Anioma State creation than anything.
Oborevwori, Nwoko and Chukwunwike, those Adonte is looking up to, to give her road.
With the flood overrunning Adonte, the town is now cut off from civilisation as no access road to the town. Apart from the shabby state of the road, there is practically no government presence there. No functional primary healthcare centre, no school; the two schools in the town, Aniga Primary School and Adonte Mixed Secondary School, built in 1980 via communal efforts, are run down with no teachers, no desks and the pupils and students sit on bare floors to learn from the few teachers who incidentally are volunteers and no corpers. The last time corpers were sent to the town was two years ago and their stay in the town was footed by the indigenes of the town that provided them with accommodation, generator for electricity supply as the whole enuani part of the LGA has no electricity.
This is the condition of some part of a state whose immediate past governor, Okowa, once prided himself as a road master, a state/LGA that has been receiving increased federal allocation , thanks to the removal of oil subsidy by the present federal government.
For the eight years Okowa governed the state, he never looked at the side of Adonte despite this writer’s passionate appeals to him to do something about the road since it is beyond what the community can do or what the local government can handle. The appeals fell on his deaf ears.
And when the current administration of Oborevwori came on board in 2023, he started what can be described as a convoluted journey all in the name of giving Adonte road.
According to his Commissioner for Rural Roads, Charles Aniagwu, the road was to have run from Nsukwa to Umute to Ukwu Oba and terminate at Adonte. A brand new road entirely he described it. But two years later, only the duo of Oborevwori and Aniagwu can tell what is happening to the road.
Efforts through Whatsapp message to Aniagwu and Chukwunwike to know the plan the government has for Adonte road was met with silence by Aniagwu as the time of going to press. But according to a source,” he (Aniagwu) has directed the Director of Rural Road and the Engineers of the Ministry of Works (Rural Road) to Scope the road and the report is out”.
On his Pastor Chukwunwike the LG chairman had this to say,” Good morning, charles. No government can solve all the challenges of the community. At the same time, we need patience even in advanced countries. There are issues of flood and other natural disasters, and the response may be different from countries, but it can not be ruled out for measures to cushion the effect nothing can possibly be done when we are still in the rainy season”.
Adonte is in need of the road and history will not forget Oborevwori if he does that just as Adontens will forever remember him negatively if he chooses to behave like his predecessor and political godfather.
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