In 2019, the government of Benue State, Nigeria, budgeted the sum of one Billion Naira (1 Billion) to construct roads from Obusa in the Ainu council ward to Ogori in the Adokpa council ward in Oju II federal constituency.
The project was placed under the Ministry of Works, Transport & energy.
The same project was also nominated for grading and building of the Oru bridge in 2020 by the senator representing Benue South senatorial district Senator. Sen. Abba Moro was pegged at N5 million, bringing the total to N1.50b billion naira.
Obusa-Ogori road is the only road to Obusa market where the people of Ogori and seven other communities ply to sell their farm products.
Oru river is a major river that separates the two council wards.
Residents in the two separate locations have farms across each other and would always need to carry out farming activities.
However, whenever it rains, the villagers always find it difficult to feed, go to the market, go to school, and, or do other functions.
UDEME visited the location in April 2022 and found that the road was graded halfway and the bridge was not built.
UDEME saw how hard the villagers stressed so hard to send food across the river. goods going to the market have to be offloaded at the bank one by one or some boys have to stand in the river to carry motorcycles to the other side.
Okwute James, a motorcyclist who normally uses the road, complained bitterly about what he has to go through to put food on his table.
“For five good years after my diploma, I have been an okada man on this road. this has never got better. we carry our bikes on our head sometimes or we use another long route which is always very far and time-consuming”
“This road was graded earlier this year but the bridge is not constructed.
The grading, too, stopped at the other side of the rive,r which I believe is due to a lack of access to the other side.
Udeme observed that young boys stood in the river to help collect goods over the river. That was why they made little money,y too.
“Each bike is N200 Nair, and each person is N50Nairaa. We are doing it for money” Arugwu, one of the boys, said.
Grossly affected but handicapped.
Maria Agbike drops from a bike that was carrying her with a load. She was coming back from the market where she went to sell her groundnut seeds. As a way of increasing trade, she bought things like garri and palm oil to store.
At the bank of the river, she drops to allow the okada man to scale through before she joins at the other side. That was how the Okada man fell into the river with the load. It took a little while before he was rescued.
“That da,y my two bags of garri and oil that I wanted to preserve poured into the water,r and that was all. It is worth about N20,000
Nathaniel Ajiga, an elder statesman said the river has cost them a lot. Both humans and goods.
“Among the things that will stop if this road and bridge is constructed is that our children will attend school regularly, they go to school in obusa and the river stops them sometimes, especially during the rainy season.
There are times people get drawn because they want food and the water in the river is too high”.
“Sometimes we go hungry for weeks because most of our farms are on the other side and we can access them. Anyone who dares to go gets drawn most of the time”.
In a bid to ameliorate their plight, the senator nominated this project to be done for the people of Obusa-Ogori. Unfortunately, nothing tangibly has been done and the people are still crying for help.
UDEME made efforts to contact the senator,r, but he did not attend to his calls,s nor were messages responded to.