Mr. Segun Onilude, Chairman, Badagry Local Government Area of Lagos State has called on the relevant authorities to come to their aid with regards to fixing bad roads and security agents’ checkpoints, as this is hindering the development of tourism in the area.
Onilude, who made this call recently, said: “no businessman in his right senses would want to do business in these conditions”.
Badagry, which he said has the potential to be great but lacks the infrastructure to support what is on the ground, as it needs facilities that would support these things and everybody would want to come to the area for tourism activities.
Onilude wondered why Badagry; an ancient town and often referred to as the cradle of civilisation with western education and Christianity first in Nigeria, has a lot of natural endowments such as islands, beaches, first storey building in the country, ‘Point of No Return” [where merchants then assembled slaves before moving them to Europe], all these have not reflected structurally in terms of advancements in the community.
In fact, according to him, “historically and talking about tourism, especially in Lagos States, Badagry is the home of tourism.
“And that is why, even good as we have all these things, we should be the Jerusalem of Nigeria. If we are not Jerusalem of Nigeria, we should be Mecca of Lagos States”.
Onilude feels bad that when you tell people to come to Badagry, the first thing that comes to their mind is the roads.
“That’s why we always call on the state because fixing roads cost a lot of money. And when you talk about roads that would be about five, six to 10 kilometres that means it involves a lot of money. And maybe when the state would come to our rescue in that, it would hasten the development of that area.
“Those are the stumbling blocks we have. A lot of people want to come and site industries, hotels, but these our roads give a lot of setbacks, and I’m sure if we have … and this is an international road linking most West African Countries up. If you travel on road from Ghana to … I’ve had people saying that from Ghana to Togo, to Benin Republic, there’s no pothole”, he complained.
Another issue Onilude regretted was that of security agents [police, customs, immigration, and border patrol] taking advantage of this deplorable state of the roads to mount checkpoints, turning them into toll gates.
“It’s not even kilometre, for, within a kilometre, you see about three checkpoints. No matter the size of your vehicle, you must part with either 200 to 500 naira.
“When you are on the road, you will see from Agbara to Seme, you will see about 70 roadblocks, checkpoints, Oh God! You will be discouraged.
“From grapevine that I heard, they’ve seen that from Agbara to Seme and Owode, we have about 92 checkpoints.
“It’s 92 in a distance that is not up to thirty kilometres… what I’m saying is that it’s not even one, one kilometre, 92 checkpoints! what were they looking for?” he asked.
However, Onilude informed that “We shouldn’t wait until these road things are fixed before we start thinking of what to do. Bad as the situation of the road is, what best can we make out of what we … because if even as it is, what we would start is not the fullest, so we should start thinking of something”.
When asked for his message to the tour operators, travel agencies, especially once the COVID-19 is off the ground and the challenges already facing the tourism industry, also pending when the road is fixed by the authorities concerned, and before people will start visiting Badagry, he advised that stakeholders should make themselves available whenever invited to proffer solutions to the numerous challenges confronting them.
“And so my advice to them is when they are invited, which would not be too long, everybody should endeavour to be available so that we rob minds together and see what we can fix on our own, it’s not everything that government must fix for us; what are the things we can fix on our own, what are the things we are doing that are detrimental to the development of industries, so we try to correct them, then from that place maybe we would have a voice, a louder voice to reach out to the higher authority to come to our aid.
“Maybe when we develop a paper form that sitting and we impress it on the state government too, they would see the need to quickly come to our support and help in developing this industry, and am sure even the state will stand to gain more”, Onilude said.
By Lucky Onoriode George, who was in Badagry, near Lagos.
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