It’s a bridge! No, it’s not a bridge, but a road full of potholes!! No, it’s a FG bridge that’s like a road with potholes!!!

This must be the worst Federal Government owned bridge in the country

I am sure some of you have driven a car or have been driven in a car with a bunch of active children who take busy-bodying to a new level by observing every animate and inanimate object, subject that flashes past as the vehicle rolls along. There are two favourites of mine, past times of Chioma, Onyema and Ani, my three-member gang. The first one is “I Spy”. By now you should expect every corner of their eyes to have become overused from relentless spying while inside a moving car.

“I spy with a corner of my eye something that looks like Obasanjo,” Ani will often say something that sounds like that. Never mind the Obasanjo allusion, I made that up. He doesn’t know the man from Adam, and I don’t think he is interested in knowing the man either! He’s much too engrossed in his computer games to bother himself about the man who has now decided to become a respectful statesman, watching over this country and making sure that the interest of the country is what he pursues until he is called up to give account of his time here on earth! Any time Ani sounds out his “I spy” puzzle, you are sure to find a scramble by Chioma and Onyema, who instead of using a corner of their eyes, like Ani did, open their four eyes very, very widely and begin to search for that thing which Ani saw with just a “corner” of his eyes. Can you imagine that?!

With their fours eyes (two each, by the way) widely opened and searching for this mysterious inanimate or animate object, you will then begin to hear possible answers in the form of suggestions as to what the real answer to the puzzle is. It’s often not just about getting it right, it’s also about who gets it right first. The reward for being the first to get it right is that you get to go next using a corner of your eyes (just recently opened widely) to ‘spy’ your own puzzle! And I tell you, yours could be, “I spy with a corner of my eyes, something that looks like a BH,” of which the answer could be “Jega or Jonathan or INEC, or the Nigerian Military” as an allegory for the postponement of elections! You see, young people can be creative by using a corner of their eyes! So, watch out.

The second favourite of mine, from the stable of Chioma, Onyema and Ani, is the one that could endanger your state of hunger if you are not careful and get yourself drawn into it. You are the car and you are seriously looking forward to getting to your destination and tucking your teeth into something for a good bite. And the game gets under way. This is a game called “Cheese on Wheels”, a parody of the phrase “Cheese on Toast”! So you can imagine being in this confined space, you are hungry and your ears then get assaulted by shouting of “Cheese on Wheels”; surely, you’ll be psychologically imagining “Cheese on Toast”. And God help your hunger!

Well, again this is a competitive game. It’s about whom, among these three active kids, is the first to spot any vehicle painted in cheese yellow colour. It’s not only spotting the vehicle, but also how many you are able to spot. Sometimes, Ani spots the most. Sometimes, Chioma does. And sometimes Onyema does. Be assured that anytime any one of them wins, they rib it into the others. It’s an interesting game, along with the first one (I-Spy), it’s a metaphor for what you get driving on a particular bridge in Lagos.

This experience actually starts from you descending the Carter Bridge at Idumota and driving towards the Ijora Olopa and then climbing the Apapa-Ijora Bridge areas of Lagos. It’s almost like living through a nightmare when you begin this journey. If you had Chioma, Onyema and Ani in a car doing this descent and this climb, I can assure you that you are likely to hear: “It’s a bridge”; “No, it’s not a bridge, but a road that looks like a bridge.” Now, don’t be confused by what you are hearing. The reason for hearing ‘bridge’ and ‘road’ especially given that a bridge is actually an elevated road is because of the experience you get from climbing from Carter Bridge and driving through Ijora Olopa to climb onto the Apapa-Ijora Bridge.

You see, there are people who haven’t seen or experienced potholes in their lives. And there are people who have seen and experienced potholes but only at ground level roads, not bridges. So, as your car drives on a bridge and you can’t really see outside, and your feel the bumps every five seconds as you do when you are doing that strectch, cheeky Chioma, Onyema and Ani, are likely to be singing: “It’s a a bridge,” “No, it’s a road that looks like a bridge.” And they are likely to add one more, especially if someone asked: “Who built this road?” Or “Who owns this bridge?”

And the third leg in such a drawn out puzzle would be any of them saying, (especially, after they must have been briefed about how things get done here), “No, it’s a FG bridge that’s like a road with potholes!!!” Who actually own that stretch of road from Ijora-Olopa to the Apapa-Ijora Bridge? And why have they allowed that road to be in such a bad state with the joints opened to such extent that there are bumps destroying vehicle shock absorbers every five seconds? This is a road I have known and experienced from my teenage years that I am appalled that nothing has been done to change the bad experience that cars, drivers and commuters have driving on it. I have never seen a bridge with this number of bumps, and so bad that it must be the worst Federal Government owned bridge in town! It really makes you wonder whether or not the Federal Ministry of Works has monitoring teams of engineer who go about looking at the state of disrepair of their roads. At what point will they made the needed intervention, if for nothing else, to stop the damage that this stretch of road does to vehicles? This is not a road, it is not a bridge. This is a destroyer and the Federal Ministry of Works is guilty for leaving this stretch of road in this poor state for this long!

PHILLIP ISAKPA