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Samson: … Just run over the damned dog and leave it there. I don’t ask you to stop and scoop it up for your next dinner. Serve Ogun his tit-bit so that road won’t look at us one day and say ho ho you two boys you look juicy to me. But what’s the use? The one who won’t give Ogun willingly will yield heavier meat by Ogun’s designing. (P.59). The Road by Wole Soyinka.
In the play, Ogun is Samson’s lord as he is of virtually all professional drivers and touts. Before Ogun they are all completely powerless and all they can do is to cover and pray like Samson: ‘May we never walk when The Road wails, tarnished or very hungry and ravenous.’
Samson is a traditional, and rather established interpreter of the road and Ogun. All that is required according to him, of any man using the road or Ogun or any of its implements is a simple sacrifice- a kind of a ritual insurance against this capricious, unrelenting god of the iron on the road. All the drivers and touts in the play who have paid their dues of sacrifice of dogs to Ogun regularly would be set free from road accidents from the spirit of the road according to dictates of Ogun.
In The Road, a play that is one of Wole Soyinka’s masterpieces, he deifies and venerates Ogun the god of iron and their iron implements in the use and control of the road. Thus, the respect and adoration Soyinka has for the road stems from his dedication and veneration of Ogun. If Soyinka could worship and glorify the road in his play The Road, who are we, then the mortal human beings who will not give devotion and praise to the networks of roads that connect the centres of business enterprises and economic nexus all over the country and throughout the country.
Through the road metaphor, Wole Soyinka looks critically at an ebullient but misdirected Nigerian society which is on the road to life and which will soon have to choose between regeneration and extinction, between revitalization and destruction.
Stakeholders in the transportation sector have advocated for regional connectivity of the road network in the country to boost intercity trade and facilitate development. The stakeholders agreed that states could leverage the existing national road networks to connect cities and towns. The road in the concurrent list represents an excellent opportunity to rethink development within the box and out of the box or without the box because the roads are the backbone of sustainable regional connectivity and green recovery.
As an environmentally friendly and free-capacity transport aide, the road can reduce land obstruction and pollution thereby improving resource efficiency, air quality and biodiversity. Roads promote economic growth by its connectivity to industrial layout to stimulate development and improve quality of life of people; connecting to wide life and tourist destinations and hospitalities.
All the stakeholders have all agreed that there is no good road in Nigeria. They have come to the conclusion that the lawmakers and the house of representative members are all jokers and not serious-minded people who are not representing the people at the national assembly but only busy representing themselves by sharing the national cake unto themselves and their families only. Otherwise, they queried, how can all the road networks nationwide be bad from Lagos to Maiduguri from Sokoto to Port-Harcourt from Abeokuta to Makurdi, from Ibadan to Enugu?
Just imagine the newly completed Lagos to Ibadan Expressway at kilometer 24 coming from Lagos to Ibadan by Dominion University, the road has caved in becoming curly and uneven rough surface! People attributed the failed portion of the Expressway to heavy truck usage. That it was caused by the heavily loaded trailers traversing the road day and night!
This essay will discuss some of the failed roads in the South Western part of the country with particular attention to the roads that have failed totally and become dis-used in Ibadan metropolis.
In Ibadan city, the stretch from gate Agodi to Challenge needs proper rehabilitation and solid re-surfacing. Apata area, Elewuro to Olorunda and Iyana Agbala RCF all need surgical operation to be able to come alive again.
The whole of government reservation area of Iyaganku definitely need general overhauling and resurfacing. Ologuneru areas plus Oluyole extension that stretches to Elebu quarters need total rehabilitation for God’s sake.
The whole of the road called Alao Akala Way in Akobo area of Ibadan north east local council has been abandoned and abdicated by house owners themselves because of the state of dis-use, disrepair and dilapidatedness of the road.
With a ride on Okada last week, I took an interest in finding out why houses owners, mansion builders and condominium landlords are abandoning their houses on Alao Akala Way to live in rented apartments elsewhere?
On the two sides of the about two kilometres long road, there are modern, updated and very sophisticated individual dwelling houses and numerous moribund industries ladden on the road.
From J. Nissi College to Pediforte Coding Academy Website Design to Dorcas Specialist Hospital to NPG Gardens Events Centre to Top Rank Model College to Rosebud Schools that contains pre- School, Elementary School and Secondary School for a comprehensive and total education for young adventurous minds, the list is endless. The road terminates at an old forgotten industrial estate comprising Leyland Company used to assemble Trucks, Academy Company that used to assemble cars and moto-cycles, and Exide Battery that used to manufacture batteries and accessories. The old industrial estate lies along Kute road in Iwofun, Iwo road.
All Governor Seyi Makinde has to do is rebuild this important road and resuscitate the moribund industries to add value to the internally generated revenue of Oyo State. Not minding the name of the road is Alao Akala, other importantly significant roads can be named after Governor Seyi Makinde after leaving office after his successful tenure of office expired.
Ibadan/ Ife road, Ife/ Ilesa road, and Ilesa/ Osogbo roads are disasters waiting to happen. These roads are no roads in the real sense of the word. They are dilapidated ridges fallowed by gully erosions! These roads are in the heartland areas of Yoruba land and they surround the ancient city of Ile-Ife where the seat of Ooni is and where the Yoruba civilization began.
Unfortunately, imagine the monarch of Ife, His Imperial Majesty Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi (Ojaja II) CFR, going round the whole world inviting people around the world to the Source- the palace of Oduduwa, the first ruler of Ooni of Ife, to come home to the first king in Yorubaland, who speaks first among other Yoruba kings. He is also the king of Ifa in Yorubaland.
The whole world turns up for the royal Majesty’s invitation; they come in large numbers from the Carribean, North and South America, Cuba, Brazil, Mexico, Barbados, and so on and so forth. They come and they encounter bad, unmotorable roads between Ibadan and Ile-Ife and they swear never to come back again! This is the real story being bandied around the whole world. The question is that why can the king as influential as he is in Yorubaland, not ask two or three adjoining governors in Yoruba states, to join hands together and repair the death-trap called roads around the so-called cradle of Yoruba civilization?!
Akure to Ado-Ekiti road has collapsed and in total disrepair ever since. The stretch between Erio Ekiti through Aramoko and Igede have collapsed and failed to function as regional transport connectivity. One wonders what Babatunde Fashola did as Works Minister in eight years for Muhammed Buhari’s administration, giving the fact that these roads-Ibadan to Ife, Ile-Ife to Ilesa, Ilesa to Osogbo, Akure to Ado Ekiti, Erio Ekiti through Aramoko to Igede Ekiti are all Federal roads and they have been bad for more than twenty years!
Wole Soyinka has spoken loud and clear in The Road metaphorically that our faith is already shaken in our institutions – the belief’s, the culture, the business organisations, politics, the man himself and the society. Therefore, we need to propitiate Ogun, Yoruba god of iron and war and appease the spirit of the road to avoid road accidents.
In order to appease the road, we must endeavor to construct good and well-built roads that would stand the test of times and not a make-shift, shallow gutters we call roads here that can easily be washed away by heavy downpour of rain. Our legislators and house of assembly members should ensure that good and strong roads permeate the length and breath of their constituencies nationwide.
Prof. Muyiwa Awodiya A retired Professor of Theatre Arts Can be reached on 08037424915
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