Our town is “no longer at ease,” as the title of that famous Achebe novel suggests. The things which used to bring peace and security are now obsolete or in disrepair. Such symptoms include bad roads, lack of electricity and increasing kidnap cases.
So, where do we start? Our roads would be a good place to begin with. I still could remember how smooth the drive to work was just six years ago. Those were the good old days, but not anymore. Now, you need to brace yourself for a bumpy ride on pothole-ridden pavement.
A section of the road
It’s not funny either. A journey that took 5 minutes previously stretches into an annoying 20 on a decent day; talk less of when it rains – muddy mess everywhere.
What is the cause of this road madness? Just one thing: trucks! Our town is located between two major highways; therefore becoming a transit point for all sorts of heavy duty vehicles such as trailers and lorries which have literally destroyed our lanes due to their weighty loads.
Does that appear fair? Well to tell you the truth, we’ve been knocking down City Hall’s doors and local council offices for repairs. But instead they just say it is beyond their control, and pass the buck up the chain. The trouble with that is will anybody higher up notice our little town from all the way up there?
A section of the road
Someone may end up in the emergency room at this rate, maybe after hitting one too many craters. I can’t even describe how bad our roads have gotten. Something needs to change!
What good is modern life without a little juice to power it? We’re in the dark ages around here watt-wise. And if we do see any electricity, it’s gone in a blink.
We get thirty short minutes before the lights flicker out again. And don’t get me started on charging phones or laptops — it's a petrol generator or bust. Are you doing the math? That daily charge is costing me over half a dollar, which is really adding up to my monthly bills.
***Phone charging store and operator ***
If you ask me, it is very frustrating. How can children be expected to learn with no electricity? How are perishable items kept cold in the freezer? And how can we watch TV at night? We need to do something about this or we will never move forward.
The way I see it, the lead of our power lines have stopped at the town border and just given up. I know change is scary sometimes, but we deserve better than this. We’ve put up with it for long enough. Our voices need to be heard now, loudly and clearly. We need a change right away.
Phone charging station
The third major issue that has been affecting our city lately has been kidnappings. It seems like every day there’s another story on the news about someone being taken from their home or workplace against their will. It’s become so bad that even well-known lawyers and business owners have had relatives kidnapped recently.
Just two weeks ago, two men working at their farms were picked up to an unknown destination. It cost the relatives and community a whooping sum of 1.2 million naira paid for each person released from the kidnapper's den.
This understandable and growing insecurity means that many residents are living in fear all the time. When danger can come at any time, peace can never be achieved by anybody. Unfortunately, it often seems as if security personnel are also invisible. Up to now, all pleas to the government have led only to empty promises of “we are working on it.”
The border of my village
Obviously, genuine solutions must urgently be sought after so as to deal with this menace and bring people’s minds back into tranquility. No town can ever develop or move forward when its inhabitants live in constant dread of their lives during the day too. This place needs saving before fear puts this place down.
To conclude these tirades; kidnapping being imminent, lack of electricity and terrible state of roads have indeed made things here ‘no longer at ease’. It is about time that strong actions were taken towards addressing these issues so that our community returns back into being safe as well as comfortable again. Until they do something tangible about it we will keep demanding for what is necessary through our voices until such a time when they shall take heed and show us real results because that is when stability together with normalcy shall return here.
This is my entry for today's writing prompt in the #aprilinleo. For more details about the writing challenge, you can visit @leo.tasks for the april edition post or @leogrowth on thread for more information too.
All the images used in this post were capture with my phone.