Date Published: 05/26/09

Sir,

Comparing 'Uyo' and 'Ojuelegba'

I would not blame Governor Akpabio who in his recent interview with The NATION newspaper, was proud to passionately say that present Uyo is now looking like Ojuelegba because he may have lived most of his past working years in Lagos and probably what fascinated him most is Ojuelegba flyover. His administration is presently constructing, at the entrance of Uyo City, flyover that is similar to the one at Ojuelegba.

To me, Ojuelegba is not a place one should be proud of. It does not have esthetics; it is very rowdy; its flyover is not attractive or spaghetti in nature, therefore nothing fantastic about it; probably because it also accommodates the Lagos terminal of Akwa Ibom Transport Company (AKTC) buses hence the governor wanted to reproduce it with such a passion and again at what cost?

Whatever informed His Excellency’s view, majority would insist that we do not want Uyo to be like Ojuelegba; flyover is supposed to clear traffic hold-ups and we seem not to have a chaotic situation yet in Uyo to warrant the flyover as a priority. What we may need are pedestrian walkovers and development of the long plotted outer ring-roads within Uyo, the Akwa Ibom capital City. This would drive development evenly and traffic to Uyo periphery.

In Nigeria today, Akwa Ibom has the most decent, modern, greened and peaceful Motor Parks which travelers to Uyo always testify to. The serenity there would not allow breeding of criminals most often associated with ordinary Motor Parks. We need to maintain these. Ojuelegba in Lagos has unorganized Motor Parks of all shapes and colours and features Lagos terminal of AKTC.

Among the things that made Lagos commercial in nature were the development of seaports and airports. Akwa Ibom being at the dead end of the Nigerian map would grow faster if our Ibom Airport/Hangar and Ibaka Seaport are developed, instead of Ojuelegba type of flyover. While the airport project is still crawling, the Ibaka seaport is still on the drawing board. Now we are getting much more from the federation account.

Israel Effiong, 79 Tayo Kehinde Street, Egbeda, Lagos State