By Asuquo Cletus Felix
All is not well in Abi Local Government Area of Cross River State as many communities suffer degrading conditions, bad roads and its attendant consequences.
Citizens in some communities in Abi have been kept in the dark, stripped of their livelihood due to poor living conditions, occasioned by bad roads, lack of Infrastructural development, inadequate power supply, insecurity amongst others.
For decades, communities like Usumutong, Ebom, Ebijakara, Afafayi in Abi, have experienced depleting living conditions.
A visit to Afafayi proved that the Cross River State government need to do more in addressing the plight of certain communities in Abi Local Government Area.
Afafayi is surrounded by the River, which links the state capital Calabar, Itu, Abia, Obubra and other communities. The people here are predominantly farmers, and fishermen. The community is blessed with an array of resources such as oil palm, sea-sand, cassava, which could be used in the processing of garri, and fishes.
Getting to Afafayi is difficult, the roads are irritating with potholes, causing untold hardship to motorists and commuters.
While there are health and security challenges posed by the road such as dust, vehicle owners may also incur lost and cost implications of frequently changing, and repairing car parts caused by the poor state of the road.
According to inhabitants of the area, the community has been unable to access good roads for transportation and other domestic use.
Mrs Nancy Bassey David , a member of the community, lamented the frustration members of the community faced in accessing good roads. She informed that due to the sorry state of the roads, the value of their goods keeps devaluing oftentimes leading to incurable losses.
She said ” The road no dey accessible. We don’t have anything to do here because we don’t have a road.
” Even if we get things to sell like garri we produce by ourselves, we don’t have people that will come here because there is no road.
“We produce oil and we will not have customers to buy it. Because there is no road, our oil will be down. If others sell like twenty thousand we sell at fifteen thousand because there is no customer, no motor, no road to transport anybody.
“We struggle by ourselves. Sometimes we carry our oil from the river here down to Ediba to sell it, which is very bad for us. The life we live here is very bad. We cannot compare it to others. We live here just like that, we use our own hands to work and we do it by ourselves.
” Even the small small roads that you see in the village, it is village contributions we make through launching. We get people for house of representatives, but they don’t do anything for us, they don’t give us attention, they don’t care.
” Sometimes during rainy season, we will pass through the river. That time the river is big if you have accident no body will help you. “- She said.
The people of the Afafayi community have overtime sought government’s intervention and support with no hope of success. They claim that the government has not sent any representatives to examine the depth of the road. But therefore appeal, and call on the government to live up to its constitutional responsibilities of providing adequate roads and improving the livelihood of its people.
Also reacting to the situation, a Fisherman, Mr Osim Samuel Osim condemned the level of government negligence on the road. He noted that with the level of resources in the community, survival without adequate electricity and roads would be difficult. He therefore called on the government to rescue the people of Afafayi and other communities suffering from the effect of the road.
In contemporary times, transportation is regarded as the life wire of development and a lot is dependent on it. In spite of its importance, there is neglect in the development and maintenance of rural transportation system especially in countries of the developing world such as Nigeria, and Afafayi is not left out
Now is the time for the state government to rise up to its responsibility by coming to the aid of Afafayi community and it environs.
