Welcome To Abuja, The Capital City Of Uncovered Manholes

Pothole Is To Lagos What Manhole Is To Abuja…

As a newbie in Abuja, I had looked forward to an exciting experience spending some time in the Federal Capital Territory.

Coming from Lagos State, the commercial hub of the country, everything in the capital city looked quite different and my mannerism apparently proved it.

There were no ‘danfos’ and ‘molues’ with loud drivers and nagging conductors silently praying that passengers would forget their balances.

Everybody seemed to be calm, responsible and everything but loud. There were no traffic jams and the roads looked beautifully tarred unlike the potholes that ‘adorn’ the roads of Lagos like some ugly bracelet.

‘This must really be a cool place’, I thought. The people seemed quite nice and welcoming but there was one scary loophole — The Manholes splattered all over the roads.

Like the spots on a leopard’s skin, virtually every road in the capital city has a fair share of uncovered manholes.

It instilled a huge fear in me because I actually am fast when it comes to walking — in fact I should comfortably win any award for the fastest walker in the world.

But, I have been humbled by the uncovered manholes in the streets of Abuja. Who wants to fall inside those ditches? Definitely not me!

For every 10 manholes on the streets of Abuja, 9 are uncovered while the remaining one which has a seal on it sleeps every night hoping to wake up with its cover intact at the break of dawn.

I have learnt to look 20 ft ahead before I take further steps, because I hate the feeling of turning into people’s laughing stock for a minute.

Actually, I am not the only one that feels this way. A thousand and one other persons do, but most times, they find it difficult to express themselves.

One of my friends broke a leg on a fateful day and still nurses the pain inflicted on him by a cruel manhole.

Another friend narrated how she fell into one of the ditches while she was pregnant. Wait what? This looks scarier right now. What if she did not survived the ordeal, or perhaps had her baby hurt by some avoidable error?

More painful is the fact that people are actually making excuses for the government on why the holes are uncovered.

They are being stolen by some ‘hungry’ citizens and the government is not doing anything to stop the menace. Perhaps, because no ally of the government has ever fallen victim to these manholes which are death traps waiting for innocent people to devour. If not they would have been covered with the speed of the light.

Instead of creating the department of Happiness as suggested by Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State, the Federal Government can actually channel the energy towards constituting a team to watch over manhole covers. Hey! Don’t look at me that way, Nigerians play too much.